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The 7pm myth 🕛 There is this strange, pervasive belief across the baby sleep universe that babies need to go to bed at 7pm. ⛔ My advice - DON’T just aim for a 7pm bedtime! CAVEAT IN BIG LETTERS: Unless your baby is tired at 7pm of course!! What I am talking about here is a blanket 7pm bedtime for all babies... Why not? 😴 Little ones need to be tired enough to go to bed. In other words, they need to have been awake long enough to build sufficient sleep pressure before bedtime. If you try and aim for 7pm when they aren’t tired enough - they’ll probably just look at you like you’re crazy. 😴 But the opposite is true too! Being awake TOO long can lead to hyperactivity and dysregulation - so if you’re aiming for 7pm and they’ve been awake for ages, this will NOT make for a calm and relaxing bedtime. 😴 In other words - if they aren’t tired enough, or are too tired - 7pm is really not going to work for them. So how do you find the perfect bedtime? 👍 If they battle bedtime - the easiest way to work it out is thinking about the time they USUALLY fall asleep. If this is 7:30pm - put them down at 7:30pm instead! 👍 If they are crashing into sleep almost instantly, it may be that they are a little overtired. Try bringing bedtime 15-20 minutes earlier than usual. 👍 Think about the usual length of their night and their usual morning wake time. For example if they usually wake at 6:30am, and sleep 11 hours - bed should be 7:30pm! 👍 Consider when they woke from their nap, and if they had more or less sleep than usual. For example if they woke early and had shorter naps - bring bedtime earlier! If they woke late or had more daytime sleep, push bedtime later. What time does your little one go to bed? #SleepCoachForBabies #GentleParentingUK #ResponsiveParenting #GentleSleepCoach #InfantSleepCoach