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How much sleep do you need? Your age, four countries’ ranges
Put in an age and see how much sleep the US, the UK, Canada and Australia recommend, and where each draws the line.
At 13, the CDC recommends 8–10 h of sleep a night, Canada and Australia recommend 9–11 h, and the NHS gives no figure for that age.
Sleep need by age
Bedtime windowoptional
For a baby or toddler, count naps in the hours. The bedtime window needs a wake-up time and is shown from age 6.
Add your usual hours to see where they fall, and a wake-up time for a bedtime window.
Sleep need at 35
Hours a night, by country
Show as a table
| Country | Recommended sleep | Its age band | Your hours |
|---|
Why these ranges?
School-night bedtime chart by age and wake-up time →
If 7 hours is hard to come by
Put on rain or a fan in the Lull app, and it goes quiet a minute before your phone's alarm.
See the Lull appWhat a published range cannot tell you
These are recommendations for groups of healthy people, published by four health bodies, not a measure of what one person needs. They say nothing about how well you sleep, and children in particular vary a lot within a band. The NHS gives an adult range and two general figures without ages, so for anyone under 18 the UK column says so instead of guessing. The bedtime window adds our 15 minutes to fall asleep, a studio rule.
See a doctor if you are tired most days despite enough time in bed, if you regularly take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep (NIOSH lists that among the symptoms to raise with a health care provider), or, for a child, ask the child's doctor about ongoing trouble settling or loud snoring. This page is general information, not medical advice: read our disclaimer.
How the lookup works
Each of the four bodies publishes its own age bands, and they do not line up. The CDC splits children at 6 and 13; Canada and Australia split them at 5 and 14. So the tool does not use one shared set of age groups. It turns the age you enter into months and finds, for each country separately, the band that age falls in. If a country has no band for that age, the row says “no official range”. Where one country's bands overlap at a birthday, the later band wins: Australia's preschool band runs to 5 and its children's band starts at 5, so a 5-year-old gets the children's range.
If you add your usual hours, each row says whether they sit below, inside or above that country's range, and by how much. If you add a wake-up time, the tool counts back by the bottom and the top of the chosen country's range, plus 15 minutes to fall asleep, to give a window to lie down in.
Worked example: a thirteen-year-old
A 13-year-old usually sleeps 8.5 hours and wakes at 7:00 AM. The four answers are:
| Country | Age 13: recommended sleep |
|---|---|
| US (CDC) | 8–10 h (13–17 years) |
| UK (NHS) | no official range |
| Canada | 9–11 h (5–13 years) |
| Australia | 9–11 h (5–13 years) |
The CDC counts 13 as a teen, so its range is 8–10 h, and 8.5 hours is inside it. Canada and Australia still count 13 as a child, at 9–11 h, so the same night is 30 min short of their range. The NHS gives no age band for children. With the CDC range and the 7:00 AM alarm, the window to lie down is 8:45 PM to 10:45 PM.
Where the four countries agree, and where they differ
Babies and toddlers. The CDC, Canada and Australia give the same hours for newborns (14–17 h until 3 months), older babies (12–16 h) and toddlers (11–14 h), naps included. The CDC's infant band runs to 12 months and Canada's and Australia's to 11, so at one year the CDC answer moves to the toddler row too.
School age. All three start at 9 hours, but the CDC's top is 12 hours and Canada's and Australia's is 11. The biggest gap is at 13: the CDC's teen range (8–10 h) has started, while Canada and Australia keep 13-year-olds on 9–11 h until their youth band at 14.
Adults. The NHS, Canada and Australia all give 7–9 h. The CDC gives 7 h or more from 18 to 60, with no upper figure, then 7–9 h for 61–64 years. From 65, the CDC, Canada and Australia all narrow to 7–8 h; the NHS has one adult range for every age.
The UK for children. The NHS page gives two general figures without saying which ages they cover: children need 9 to 13 hours, and toddlers and babies need 12 to 17 hours. We show those as a note rather than turn them into age bands the NHS did not publish.
Reading a range
A range is a band for healthy people in that group, not a target to hit to the minute, and the bodies say the same thing in different words. The signal worth acting on is a lasting mismatch: being tired most days despite enough time in bed, or needing far more than the range just to get through the day. If school-night and weekend sleep sit far apart, the social jet lag calculator shows by how much.
Where each range comes from
The US rows are the CDC's table of recommended daily sleep. The UK row is the NHS's insomnia page. Canada's rows come from the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines: the early-years guideline for under-5s and the Public Health Agency of Canada's summary for older ages. Australia's rows are the Department of Health's 24-hour movement guidelines for each age group. Each figure links to its row on the methodology page, with the wording we read and the date we read it.
The ranges behind this lookup
Each row is one value this tool uses, with its tier: Primary = read off the source page, Secondary = reported by the source from another body, Studio rule = our own choice, with the reason given on the methodology page. The links in the result above go to the same rows there.
Quotes, notes and the date we last read each source are on the methodology and sources page.
Sleep need questions
How much sleep does an adult need?
The NHS, Canada and Australia give 7–9 h. The CDC gives 7 h or more from 18 to 60, 7–9 h for 61–64 years, and 7–8 h from 65.
How much sleep does a teenager need, UK vs US?
The CDC gives 8–10 h for 13–17 years. The NHS gives no teen band; its page says children need 9 to 13 hours without stating ages. Canada and Australia give 8–10 h from 14.
How much sleep does a 10 year old need?
The CDC says 9–12 h for 6–12 years; Canada and Australia say 9–11 h for 5–13 years.
Do naps count toward the total?
For babies and toddlers, yes: the CDC, Canadian and Australian figures for those ages include naps. For older children and adults the figures are for sleep over a day, mostly at night.
Why does a country say “no official range”?
Because that body publishes no range for that age. The NHS's figures for children have no ages attached, so we do not turn them into a UK range; they are shown as a note instead.
How do I turn my range into a bedtime?
Add a wake-up time here for a window, or use the sleep calculator, which counts whole sleep cycles back from your alarm and picks a count inside the CDC range for your age group.
Is the age I enter stored anywhere?
No. The lookup runs in your browser. The share link holds only the form's values, and only if you copy it.
More questions about the site, its sources and privacy are answered in the Lull FAQ.