What time should my 6 month old be put to bed?

I have a 6 month old boy, and was wondering what time should babies be put to bed at this age? At the moment he sleeps anywhere between 11.30pm - 1am. We put him in the bedroom around 11.30pm, feed him his last bottle for the night and wait for him to settle. He sleeps right through the night til around 9-10am for his first feed and falls back asleep after an hour before waking up around 12-1pm. Ever since our son was born we never really enforced any sleeping schedule, he just happens he gets tired at night around 11pm -1am. We never wake him up in the morning, we let him wake up whenever he feels like it. During the day he takes 2 naps. Should I be setting a sleeping schedule at this stage, he hasn't needed a night feed since he was 2 months old, so he's sleep schedule is pretty much the same as ours (except for the naps), but I read in various websites that babies should be sleeping at around 7-8pm. Should I be putting by baby to sleep earlier?

our daughter is the same way. we never enforced any schedule on her, she is now 15 months old. she also has not needed a night feed since about 2-3 months. she will sleep anywhere from 9pm-12am but we usually try to get her to sleep around 11 if she has not already. she will sometimes take a nap during the day sometimes not. i don't see why enforcing a schedule on them will them any better of a person, smarter, or stronger. any more than it would you or i. however, them sleeping earlier will give you and your spouse more "down-time". personally i like the time with her when i get home so don't mind her schedule at all. hope this helps.

we put my baby to sleep at around 7pm and she sleeps till about 6am. She was a night owl when she first arrived but at about 3 months we started to put her to bed around 7pm, as it did allow some downtime for me and my husband. She now consistently goes to sleep at that time and it works for us. We also have a 7 year old and basically the 2 kids go to bed at the same time - as the older one needs to go to school and the bus is at 7.30am, it is not an option for her to be up later, and she wouldnt be at all happy if her sister was up and she was in bed.


I think it is a matter of the baby getting the right amount of sleep per day rather than the time - if it works for you to not have a set time each day then dont worry as long as he is getting the recommended hours. There are lots of places on the web you can search to see how many hours recommended for what age group.

thanks, all advice has been helpful. We've worked on a schedule that works for the whole family, but I do agree with kiwi, getting enough hours of sleep is more important than the actual time at this stage, and since my husband works til 9pm, it works well for me to put my son down around 10.30pm so that my husband can spend some time with our son. Our son sleeps around 15-16 hrs a day (including his naps) which according to our paeditrician is normal for his age.


I guess as he gets older and starts kindergarden, his schedule will change, so we will adjust accordingly once that time comes.

My 6-month old goes to bed at 7pm, however he starts yawning around 6pm so I think he needs to go around 6.30pm. He only has a couple of short naps a day. He usually wakes up around 7am.