Sleep
Summer Bedtime: Getting Kids to Sleep While It's Still Light
5 min read
Summer breaks bedtime at both ends: it's broad daylight at 8pm when they're meant to be settling, and broad daylight again at 4:45 when they're meant to still be asleep.
Most of the fix is mechanical rather than behavioral — it's about light and temperature far more than about willpower.
Blackout is the whole game
Light reaching the eye is the main signal a body clock reads, so genuinely dark is worth more than any amount of routine adjustment. That means to the edges: a blind that leaves a bright frame of light around it isn't doing much.
Cheap and effective options include stick-on blackout film, a blackout blind fitted inside the recess, or a temporary panel cut to size. Check the room in the evening rather than the middle of the day to see what you're actually dealing with.
Dim the rest of the house too
A dark bedroom doesn't help much if the hour before it was spent in a bright kitchen with the garden doors open. Draw curtains downstairs during the routine, use lamps instead of overhead lights, and move the wind-down indoors earlier than feels natural.
Heat matters as much as light
- Close curtains and windows during the hottest part of the day, then open up in the evening once the outside air is cooler.
- A fan pointed at a wall rather than at your child moves air without a draught, and doubles as white noise.
- Lighter bedding and fewer layers — overheating causes more night waking than being slightly cool.
- A cooler bath than usual as part of the routine.
Should you move bedtime later?
A modest shift — twenty or thirty minutes across the summer — is reasonable, especially if mornings are also later. What causes trouble is a large shift with an unchanged wake-up, which just removes an hour of sleep per night and shows up as behavior by mid-July.
If you're going to move it, move the whole routine and hold the new time steady rather than deciding fresh each evening based on how light it is.
Keep the routine intact through the holidays
Summer usually comes with nursery closures, visitors, late barbecues, and no structure at all. The bedtime sequence is the one bit of scaffolding worth keeping, even when everything else about the day has moved — the same order, and the same story at the end of it.
Common questions
- How do I get my child to sleep when it's still light outside?
- Blackout covering to the edges of the window is the single most effective change, plus dimming the rest of the house during the wind-down. Light reaching the eye is what the body clock reads.
- Should bedtime be later in summer?
- A modest shift of twenty to thirty minutes is reasonable, particularly if mornings are also later. A large shift with an unchanged wake-up just costs an hour of sleep a night.
- How do I keep a hot bedroom cool enough for sleep?
- Close curtains and windows during the day and open them once the evening air is cooler, use a fan pointed at a wall rather than at your child, and use lighter bedding — overheating causes more waking than being slightly cool.
Tonight's story, ready to read
Original illustrated bedtime stories for ages 2+, by a professional narrator or in your own recorded voice. Some are free — no account needed.