A free, single-purpose tool that turns published paediatric sleep guidance into one clear answer: what time should your child go to bed tonight?
Most bedtime advice is vague. "Make sure they get enough sleep" is true and useless at 8pm on a school night. This site exists to replace that with a specific number, grounded in published research, that you can act on immediately.
The recommended amount of sleep changes more over childhood than almost any other health measure: a newborn needs roughly twice what a teenager does, and the right bedtime for a 2-year-old is nothing like the right bedtime for a 12-year-old. Most parents know the direction of travel but not the specifics, and general articles rarely account for the one number that actually determines bedtime: what time the child has to wake up.
Child Sleep Calculator was built to close that gap. You give it your child's age and their real wake-up time; it applies the published night-sleep range for that age and works backward to a bedtime window and a single target time. It does one job, and it does it precisely, for free, with no sign-up and no data leaving your device.
Child Sleep Calculator is an independent website run by its founder together with a small editorial team of writers and editors who research parenting and child-health topics. We are not doctors, paediatric sleep consultants, or a medical service, and we have no affiliation with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, or the NHS.
Because we are not clinicians, we do not offer our own opinions on how your child should sleep. Everything here reflects published expert consensus, written in plain language and checked against the original source. Where the evidence is genuinely mixed, we say so. Our full process is set out in our editorial standards.
The calculator's age bands and sleep-duration ranges come from a small number of named, publicly available sources:
Paruthi S, et al., in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine - the American Academy of Sleep Medicine consensus statement, endorsed by the AAP. Our primary source for how many hours each age needs.
Hirshkowitz M, et al., in Sleep Health - an independent expert panel whose ranges corroborate the AASM/AAP figures using a separate method.
Practical UK guidance on children's and teenagers' sleep, routine and wind-down, consistent with the consensus ranges. nhs.uk
Parent-facing guidance on bedtime routines, sleep environment and safe infant sleep. healthychildren.org
→ Full citations and how each figure maps to the calculator · → Printable sleep chart
We review the calculator's data and every article on this site at least every six months, and out of cycle whenever the AASM, AAP or NHS announce a revision. If official recommendations change, we update the figures, the guides and the "last reviewed" dates, and note what changed.
If you spot an error, email hello@childsleepcalculator.com with the page and, if you have one, the source. We investigate every report and fix confirmed errors quickly. Our editorial standards page has the full review schedule, corrections policy, and a note on how the site is funded (display advertising only - no sponsored content, no affiliate links).
The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your child's age and wake-up time are never sent to a server, stored, or shared. No account is needed. The site shows advertising through Google AdSense, which may set cookies - full detail is in the Privacy Policy. This site is for parents and caregivers, not for use by children, and is operated in line with COPPA.
Disclaimer: Child Sleep Calculator provides general information based on published population-level guidance. It is not a medical service and does not provide medical advice. Calculator results are a starting point based on averages, not a prescription for your individual child. If you have concerns about your child's sleep, breathing during sleep, daytime tiredness or development, speak to your doctor, health visitor or a paediatrician.