What time should a 3 year old go to bed?

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3 year old has suspected ADHD and autism currently going through assessments.

From before 1st birthday DC dropped day time naps and became problematic to get to sleep was wakening at 8am and awake until 2am no matter how hard I tried DC wouldn't nap or go down earlier.

So for 3 years I've had a DC who didn't sleep. DC had recently started nursery so up at 8am at nursery 9am - 3pm home dinner and bath.

Now DC is struggling to keep her eyes open very early, I'm not used to DC wanting to sleep without a fight so just wondering what a suitable bedtime is?

I'm also worried that if DC goes to sleep too early they may wake back up in the middle of the night and be absolutely floored the next day.

The earliest we have done this week is 7:50pm DC slept right through until 7:40 with me having to wake DC.

But it's 17:30 now and DC is showing signs that they could just go to sleep right now.

TIA

I wouldn’t allow at 5:30 otherwise mine would do a nap and then be awake and bouncing off the walls at 11pm. Id try and keep up to 6:30.

Mine went to bed around 6.30 / 7 at that age.

@123456abcdef this is exactly what I'm thinking lol. Bath time is done so just going to play a wee game to try keep DC up a tint bit longer.

@WonderingWanda given that DC didn't sleep properly for so long I'm just so lost and trying not to get to the meltdown point due to over tiredness and also trying to avoid too early if DC will wake up during the night.

I would say 7 is a good bedtime for alll kids. He may wake at midnight or something silly if he went at half five. Try and keep him going.

DS1 (autistic it turned out) went to bed at 8 because his idea of waking up time was 5:30 at that age and it only got earlier if he went to bed at 7.

We now know that DD has ADHD. She slept midnight till noon till she started school at almost 4, when bedtime naturally moved to about 10pm.

7ish is usually good for that age give or take half an hour either side depending on how tired they are. My 3.5YO was 7.20 tonight. Might be as early as 6.30 after a very busy day but I wouldn’t allow earlier than that as it would result in an early wake.

@ineedtogwtoutbeforeitatoohot we managed until 7:30pm will see how we go throughout the night 🤞

@DelurkingAJ oh no 😢 given the fact she barley slept before starting nursery I'm worried that going down too early could cause her to wake up too early. I'm dumbfounded tbh because I tried everything prior to nursery starting I had woken her up early got up and out very early to soft plays, parks etc and no matter how early she got up or how busy her day had been I was lucky if she was sleeping for 2am it was like tiredness didn't affect her now all of a sudden she's at nursery and coming home tired and I'm confused on how to deal with a DC that actually wants to sleep 🤣

@DeclutteringNewbie it's hard going isn't it. We are just at the start of the journey of assessments so not sure what will come back one health care profession said DC was showing signs of ADHD and then the health visitor said she had traits of ADHD but she also picked up on autistic traits.

@InTheRainOnATrain we managed to get by until 7:30 tonight so fingers crossed she is down all night I've prepared myself for a midnight wake up or early rise just incase

My first dd would go to bed 6:30/7 that age but was always an early riser 6am ish.
My second dd has to go down no early than 7:45pm. I’ve tried 7, 7:15, 7:30 but the result of that is ALWAYS her waking up around midnight and messing about for two hours so we battle on until 7:45 even though she’s tired. She’s then up at 6, sometimes a bit later if we’re lucky. If she naps she won’t go down until 9pm.