What Time Should a 9-Year-Old Go to Bed? School Nights, Weekends and Summer

A 9-year-old who wakes up at 7:00 AM should go to bed around 8:15 PM, and no later than 9:45 PM. That gives about 10.5 hours of sleep, inside the 9 to 12 hours the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for children aged 6 to 12. Each bedtime on this page includes about 15 minutes to fall asleep.

These are the same numbers the kids bedtime calculator gives for a 9-year-old. Below are the school-night times for every common wake-up, plus what to do on weekends and through the summer.

What time should a 9-year-old go to bed on a school night?

Count back 10 hours and 45 minutes from the time your child has to get up. For a 7:00 AM wake-up that's 8:15 PM; for 6:30 AM it's 7:45 PM.

The "latest" column is the last bedtime that still meets the 9-hour minimum. Treat it as the floor for a busy night, not the everyday target. The "earliest" column is the top of the range: few 9-year-olds need 12 hours, but an early night after a big day does no harm.

Ten and a half hours is a starting point. If your child is hard to wake, falls apart by late afternoon or dozes in the car, try 15 minutes earlier for a week. If they lie awake for half an hour most nights, they may need a little less.

How much sleep does a 9-year-old need?

A 9-year-old needs 9 to 12 hours of sleep a night. That range covers all children aged 6 to 12, and the AASM's pediatric guideline links regular sleep in that range to better attention, behavior, learning, memory and mental health.

Naps are long gone at 9, so all of it has to come at night. Most 9-year-olds do well on about 10 to 10.5 hours.

What time should a 9-year-old go to bed on the weekend?

Keep weekend bedtime and wake-up within about an hour of school nights. If your child wakes at 7:00 AM on weekdays, an 8:00 AM weekend wake-up and a 9:15 PM bedtime keep the same 10.5 hours without moving their body clock much.

A sleepover or a late family night now and then is fine. The trouble starts when both weekend nights run two or three hours late, because Sunday night then feels like sleeping in a different time zone. If that happens, wake them at the usual weekend time on Sunday and let an early Sunday bedtime do the catching up.

Regularity matters at this age. A large UK study of more than 10,000 seven-year-olds found that children without regular bedtimes had more behavioral difficulties, and those who moved to regular bedtimes showed improvement. It's observational, so it can't prove cause, but it's a good reason to keep weekend times close.

What time should a 9-year-old go to bed in the summer?

In summer, a later bedtime is fine as long as wake-up moves later by the same amount and your child still gets about 10.5 hours. For an 8:30 AM wake-up that means bed around 9:45 PM; for 9:00 AM, around 10:15 PM.

Two things make summer easier:

• Keep an anchor. Letting both times drift is easy in June and hard in August. About two weeks before school starts, move wake-up and bedtime 15 minutes earlier every couple of days until you're back on the school schedule.
• Darken the bedroom. Bright evenings are one of the most common reasons children this age can't settle in summer. Blackout curtains or blinds help a lot.

Is 9 PM too late for a 9-year-old?

On a school night with a 7:00 AM wake-up, 9 PM gives about 9 hours 45 minutes of sleep, which is inside the healthy range but below the 10.5-hour target. With a 6:30 AM wake-up it gives 9 hours 15 minutes, close to the floor.

So 9 PM works now and then, but most 9-year-olds do better on an earlier lights-out on school nights. Many children this age want a later bedtime than a younger sibling, and 15 minutes later is a fair compromise that costs little sleep.

Getting a 9-year-old to bed on time

A fixed routine that ends the same way every night does more than any argument at bedtime. The full version by age is in bedtime routine for kids.

• Start 30 minutes before lights-out: shower, pajamas, teeth, then reading in bed.
• Keep phones and tablets out of the bedroom. In a review of 20 studies of school-age children and teens, bedtime device use was linked to roughly twice the odds of not getting enough sleep, and even having a device in the room without using it was linked to poorer sleep.
• Shorten the routine on late-activity nights rather than moving lights-out.

Bedtimes for ages 6 to 8 are in what time should a 7-year-old go to bed, and the next year up is in what time should a 10-year-old go to bed.

When to talk to your pediatrician

Check with your child's pediatrician if they snore loudly most nights or have pauses or gasps in breathing while asleep, are very sleepy during the day despite enough time in bed, wake often every night, or have had trouble falling asleep for weeks.