Teenagers ages 13 to 18 should regularly get 8 to 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours, including naps. This is the consensus recommendation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine 1.
The range is a planning guide, not a score for judging one night. A teen may feel best at a different point within it from a sibling or friend. The more useful test is whether the schedule offers enough time to sleep and whether the teen can stay alert and function through ordinary days.
Six hours is two hours below the lower end of the recommended range. It is not enough for most teenagers, even if a teen has become accustomed to getting that amount 1.
Calculate sleep opportunity, not just bedtime
The recommendation describes sleep obtained. Time in bed is only the opportunity to sleep.
Start with the nonnegotiable morning wake time. Work backward by the amount of sleep being planned, then add the time the teen usually spends falling asleep and awake overnight.
For example, suppose a teen must wake at 6:30 a.m. and is planning for 8 hours 30 minutes of actual sleep:
- Count back 8 hours 30 minutes. The target sleep-onset time is 10 p.m.
- If the teen usually takes about 30 minutes to fall asleep and spends another 15 minutes awake overnight, add those 45 minutes.
- The required sleep opportunity begins around 9:15 p.m.
This is an estimate, not a medically exact bedtime. If 9:15 p.m. is impossible because practice ends at 9, the main problem is not a missing relaxation tip. The schedule does not contain enough sleep opportunity.
Include naps in the 24-hour total. A nap can add sleep, but its effect on alertness and nighttime sleep differs by timing, duration, and the individual. There is no single nap length that every teenager needs.
Check the pattern across ordinary days
One unusually late night or long recovery morning gives little information. For several ordinary school days and free days, note:
- when the teen got into bed and when they tried to sleep
- the estimated time it took to fall asleep
- meaningful time awake during the night
- final wake time, time out of bed, and number of alarms
- naps
- caffeine and energy drinks, including the product and time
- required school, commute, homework, work, caregiving, practice, and social times
- daytime sleepiness, unintended dozing, concentration, mood, and ability to drive safely
Estimates are enough. A consumer wearable is not a substitute for a clinical assessment.
Next, ask two separate questions:
- Was enough sleep opportunity available?
- Did the teen sleep through most of that opportunity?
A teen who has only six available hours needs time returned to the schedule. A teen who allows nine hours but repeatedly lies awake for long periods has a different problem.
Why many teenagers naturally get sleepy later
Sleep timing often shifts later during adolescence. Research describes changes in both circadian timing, the body's internal timing system, and sleep homeostasis, the pressure to sleep that builds while a person is awake. These biological changes interact with light, school schedules, and social demands rather than acting alone 2.
A later tendency does not mean every late night is biologically fixed. Homework, paid work, caregiving, late practices, social plans, notifications, gaming, video, and caffeine can all push sleep later. It also does not mean a teen who cannot sleep early necessarily has a disorder.
These patterns call for different responses:
- A chosen or externally required late night: The teen is sleepy but stays awake for an activity or obligation. The fix starts with that activity or obligation.
- Insufficient sleep opportunity: The full schedule leaves fewer than 8 hours available, or leaves no allowance for normal awake time. The timetable has to change for the teen to meet the recommendation.
- Insomnia symptoms: The teen has enough opportunity but repeatedly has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or obtaining satisfactory sleep 3.
- Possible delayed sleep-wake phase disorder: Sleep is persistently shifted much later than the required schedule, causes meaningful impairment, and is easier and adequate in duration when the teen can follow the later schedule. This is more than occasionally choosing to stay up late.
Delayed sleep-wake phase disorder and insomnia can overlap, and treatment timing matters. The AASM made only weak recommendations for timed melatonin and light-based treatment in children and adolescents because the available evidence was limited 4. A clinician familiar with adolescent sleep should guide these treatments rather than having a family guess at the timing.
Find the constraint that is shortening sleep
Early school and commuting
An early required wake time can conflict with later adolescent sleep timing. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called on middle and high schools to aim for start times no earlier than 8:30 a.m. 5.
A 2024 meta-analysis of 37 studies found that later school start times were associated with longer weekday sleep, later sleep timing, and less difference between school-day and free-day timing. The size of these differences varied, and the relationship between school time and local sunrise helped explain some of that variation 6. This matters because a schedule-level problem may need a schedule-level response. Families can still work on the parts they control, but sleep education cannot create hours before an early bus.
Count the full morning demand, including dressing, eating, travel, and any before-school activity. If a school start cannot change, look for movable demands elsewhere in the day and protect the earliest feasible opportunity.
Homework, work, caregiving, and activities
Put school, commuting, homework, paid work, caregiving, practices, and recurring evening commitments on one weekly calendar. Look for predictable collisions.
A teenager may not control the assignment load, work shift, care duty, or practice time. Parents and caregivers can help raise the conflict with the person who can change it, such as a teacher, employer, coach, or another family member. Treating a structural shortage as poor discipline misses the actual problem.
Phones, games, video, and notifications
Focus on what screen use is doing, not on a universal screen-curfew rule. In a four-night study of 79 young people ages 11 to 14, screen use during the two hours before bed was not associated with most sleep measures that night. Screen use after getting into bed, especially interactive use and multitasking, was associated with later sleep attempts and less sleep 7.
The study was small, covered a narrow age range, and observed associations rather than proving that a specific activity caused the sleep change. It does support a practical distinction: a device used earlier for homework is not the same problem as gaming, messaging, or scrolling in bed after the intended sleep time.
Use the record to identify the pattern. Helpful changes may include charging the phone out of reach, silencing nonessential notifications, setting a stopping point for interactive content, or keeping schoolwork out of bed. The right change is the one that returns sleep opportunity or reduces repeated interruption.
Caffeine and energy drinks
Caffeine may temporarily reduce the feeling of sleepiness, but it does not replace sleep and can contribute to later sleep difficulty. It can appear in coffee, tea, soda, chocolate, supplements, energy products, and some medicines.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says medical experts advise against energy drinks for children and teenagers. It also notes that caffeine sensitivity and product content vary, and that too much caffeine in young people can cause sleep problems and other adverse effects 8.
Record the product, amount, and time. If caffeine is being used to get through the day and sleep is difficult at night, reduce or move the exposure with a parent or clinician's help. Check medicine labels and ask the prescriber or pharmacist about sleep effects. Do not stop a prescribed medicine without medical advice.
Weekends and free days
A later weekend schedule may reflect both recovery from short school nights and the chance to follow a later body clock. One long sleep does not prove that a teen is ill, and sleeping past 10 hours after repeated short nights or an illness can be a recovery response.
Large, repeated shifts can make an early school wake time harder for some teenagers 2. Instead of enforcing an identical schedule every day, compare the record. If free-day timing is followed by difficulty sleeping before school, reduce the swing where practical while also addressing the weekday sleep shortage.
Regularly sleeping longer than the recommended range is not automatically harmful. Persistent long sleep together with trouble waking, unintended sleep, declining function, or continued exhaustion deserves medical evaluation because the sleep pattern may be a sign of another problem.
Build a realistic plan
- Anchor the required wake time. Use the actual time the teen must get up, not the time school starts.
- Choose a starting point within 8 to 10 hours. A midpoint can be useful when the teen's own need is unclear, but it is not a prescription.
- Add usual awake time. Include the time normally spent falling asleep and awake overnight.
- Compare the result with the real evening. If the opportunity is impossible, identify the specific school, work, care, activity, travel, content, or caffeine constraint.
- Change one meaningful bottleneck. A schedule change that returns 30 minutes is more useful than several rules that do not affect the actual barrier.
- Recheck ordinary days and daytime function. If the teen gets enough opportunity but still cannot sleep or remains markedly sleepy, move from habit changes to clinical assessment.
There is no universal best bedtime. A bedtime between 10 p.m. and midnight cannot provide enough sleep for a teen who must wake at 5:30 a.m., while 10:30 p.m. may be compatible with a later required wake. The calculation, the teen's timing, and the resulting function matter more than the clock label.
When a teenager should get medical help
Ask a pediatrician, primary-care clinician, or sleep clinician for help when sleep difficulty or sleepiness is persistent, worsening, or interfering with school, relationships, mood, or safety.
Breathing during sleep
Habitual snoring, gasping, snorting, witnessed pauses in breathing, labored breathing, morning headaches, or marked daytime sleepiness warrant assessment. The AAP recommends screening children and adolescents for snoring and evaluating snoring accompanied by symptoms or signs of obstructive sleep apnea 9.
Uncomfortable or restless legs
An urge to move the legs that begins or worsens at rest, improves temporarily with movement, and is worse in the evening or at night can suggest restless legs syndrome. A clinician may review medicines and test iron status. The AASM's pediatric iron recommendation is conditional and based on very low-certainty evidence, so do not start high-dose iron without testing and clinical guidance 10.
Persistent insomnia or a very delayed schedule
Get help when a teen repeatedly cannot sleep despite enough opportunity, cannot wake for required activities, or sleeps normally only on a much later schedule. Bring the sleep record. It helps the clinician separate insufficient opportunity, insomnia symptoms, and a possible circadian disorder.
Also review alcohol, cannabis, nicotine, nonprescribed stimulants, sedating antihistamines, sleep products, supplements, and prescribed medicines honestly. These can affect sleep or alertness. A clinician or pharmacist can assess possible interactions and help decide what should change.
Mood and behavior changes
A tired teen usually wants more sleep. A sharply reduced need for sleep is different: the teen sleeps very little but does not feel tired and also becomes unusually energized or irritable, talks rapidly, has racing thoughts, or takes uncharacteristic risks. The National Institute of Mental Health lists this cluster among possible symptoms of mania in young people, and it calls for prompt professional assessment rather than a bedtime plan alone 11.
Hopelessness, talking about wanting to die, self-harm thoughts or actions, giving away important possessions, saying goodbye, or looking for a way to die needs immediate help 12. Do not leave the teen alone when there is immediate danger. Contact local emergency services or an appropriate local crisis service now.
Drowsy driving
A teen who is struggling to stay awake should not drive. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration identifies teenagers as vulnerable to drowsy-driving crashes and advises delaying driving until they are well rested 13. Opening a window, turning up music, or relying on an energy drink does not make a dangerously sleepy driver safe.
The bottom line
Most teenagers need 8 to 10 hours of sleep in each 24-hour period. Start with the required wake time, allow for normal awake time, and see whether the schedule can actually provide that sleep.
If it cannot, fix the constraint rather than blaming the teen or prescribing an arbitrary bedtime. If enough opportunity is available but sleep still will not come, daytime sleepiness continues, or warning symptoms appear, the next step is a clinical assessment.
