thread: How much sleep at 5-6 years?

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  1. #1
    Registered User

    Apr 2008
    Home, where else??
    1,177

    My 6 yo goes to bed around 8pm, asleep by 8.30pm. He will wake up at 6am, 6.30am at the latest.

    When he started school, I found he was exhausted for the first few weeks, and once he got into the routine of school, he was fine.

  2. #2
    Registered User

    Dec 2007
    Victoria
    7,260

    DD1 is in bed by 7pm, I try and make sure we do story time and everything no later than 6:45, always light out before 7:30.
    She is up at 7am if I wake her, but will sometimes get herself up at 6-6:30. She gets about 10.5 hours on average I would think.

  3. #3
    BellyBelly Life Subscriber

    Jan 2006
    11,633

    There's no research to tell us how much kids need at any age, so you have to just be guided by her. Hopefully, if she needs more she'll start sleeping a bit longer in the morning and/or go to sleep sooner in the evening.

  4. #4
    Registered User

    Jan 2006
    8,369

    Liebling (6) is usually asleep for 8pm and up about 7am (about 11 hours a night). This has been the case from about age 4 and will continue until he needs less sleep.

    Sometimes he is asleep for 7.30 (rare: bedtime starts around 7pm), sometimes he's up until 9pm (with lights out at about 7.30). Some days he's up at 6am, other days sleeps in until 8.30. But he's rested and happy and learning, so I figure he's getting enough sleep for him. When he started school, the first few months had lights out at about 8pm and he was up at 6am. He slept in at weekends, bless him, that was just a little bit too little for him on a regular basis.

    FWIW, Liebling is up in the night still, but he can go to sleep late, wake twice and be up early, or he can ask to go to bed, sleep through and lie in the next day. Depends on how much sleep he needs at that time.

  5. #5
    Registered User

    Feb 2006
    NSW Central Coast
    5,301

    Thanks everyone. Maybe she is getting enough then. It might just be that school is wiping her out. Apparently she is an angel at school (thankfully!) and absolutely loves it, but when she comes home she's horrid! I have started giving her a bath on her own after she has her afternoon snack, to help her calm down and relax a bit before she interacts with her brothers, otherwise she's saying and doing horrible things to them and making them cry!

    I can't make her sleep (God know's I have tried through the years!) and hopefully she will regulate herself to catch up and get enough.

  6. #6
    Registered User

    Jan 2009
    5,235

    Perhaps make her bedtime a little later so that she sleeps later in the morning? So maybe a 7.30 bedtime and asleep by 8 then she might sleep through till 7ish the next morning. Worth a try?