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The back-to-school season isn’t just an adjustment for preschoolers and elementary-aged children. In many ways, the tween and teen years present the biggest sleep challenge of all.

As children move through puberty, their circadian rhythm naturally shifts later, making it harder to fall asleep early, just as school start times require earlier wake-ups. Add in homework, sports, extracurricular activities, social lives, and screens, and many middle and high school students are functioning with far less sleep than they need.

In this episode, Allison explains what’s actually happening to your tween or teen’s brain and body during adolescence, why so many older children are chronically sleep deprived, and the practical steps parents can take to help.

She discusses the latest research on teen sleep, the connection between sleep and academic performance, anxiety, depression, athletic performance, and emotional regulation, and why helping older kids prioritize sleep may be one of the greatest gifts parents can give them.

Whether you have a middle schooler who’s suddenly impossible to wake up or a high school student staying up late to finish homework, this episode offers practical, research-backed strategies to help your child get the sleep they need to thrive.

In this episode, Allison discusses:
— Why puberty naturally shifts a child’s circadian rhythm
— How much sleep tweens and teens actually need
— Why school schedules work against adolescent biology
— The latest research showing teens are getting less sleep than ever before
— The connection between sleep, learning, memory, and academic performance
— How sleep deprivation affects anxiety, depression, and emotional regulation
— Why sleep deprivation can mimic ADHD symptoms
— Signs your tween or teen is simply “getting by” instead of thriving
— Why weekend sleep-ins and long naps can make school-week sleep even harder
— The importance of consistent sleep schedules
— How screens, late-night texting, and homework affect sleep
— Why Allison doesn’t recommend screens in bedrooms
— The role bedtime routines still play during the teen years
— Thoughts on melatonin use for adolescents
— Practical ways parents can help older children prioritize sleep

Resources mentioned:
Episode 187. Teen Sleep & Anxiety: What a 12th Grader Wants Parents to Know with Lizzie Pisani
Episode 249. Preschool Sleep Schedule: How to Get Ready for Back to School
Episode 250. Starting Kindergarten? How Sleep Can Make the Transition Easier
Episode 251.How to Help Your Elementary School Child Sleep Better This School Year

Wondering if your child is getting enough sleep? Allison’s free guides take the guesswork out of bedtime. Learn the optimal sleep ranges for every age so your little one can feel their best, day after day. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

252. Middle School & High School Sleep: How to Help Your Child Succeed This School Year
Allison Egidi: Before we dive in today, I have to tell you guys about my daughter who has suddenly decided that she wants to make money. She turned 12 last month and was not quite feeling ready to do lots of solo babysitting. So she’s doing all sorts of other random jobs in the neighborhood. The big moneymaker has been her pooper scooping business, where she’s cleaning the neighbors’ backyards, but she’s also been watering plants, bringing in mail for people who are out of town, letting dogs out for potty breaks, and being a mother’s helper when the mom is home and needs some help with the kids.

Girlfriend is working hard this summer. And she has her little green light account that allows moms to easily pay her through their Venmo. And then she immediately has her money in savings, which is where she would like it to be. Which brings me to the next interesting thing, which is the fact that I’m always saying how my two girls are so different and that they’re only 18 months apart and how they want to handle money is just another example of how they approach the world so differently.

So it was my oldest who saw an ad for Greenlight and asked me to get it for her. So I got it for both of them. And my oldest immediately started researching and found stocks to invest her savings in, and she’s tracking her stocks and keeping track of how much money she’s making while basically going out and playing with her friends all day. Whereas my younger daughter is using it as her motivator to work and make money, so people are depositing money into her account, and she was only willing, with me like really pushing the issue to invest $40 because she’s very risk-averse, and she’s kind of happy with the small amount of interest she gets on her savings account and not risking losing any money.

So things like this always make me smile because that nature versus nurture debate is alive and well in this house. And man, nature, sometimes they’re just born the way they are. So, no, Greenlight is not a sponsor of this podcast, but I have to tell you guys, it’s been a really great money tool for my girls at their ages of 12 and 13.

Okay, on to today’s episode, which is the last of my back to school sleep series. So three weeks ago we covered preschool back to school sleep. That was episode 249. The following week we talked about kindergarten sleep, episode 250. And last week we talked about the impact sleep can have for elementary school students.

Today we’re closing out the back to school series with the age group that I think might need this conversation the most and gets it the least. Tweens and teens. If you have a middle schooler or a high schooler, today’s episode is for you because the sleep challenges at this age are real, they are very different from those of younger kids, and they are significantly underestimated.

Hey there, Allison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. Today we’re talking about tween and teen sleep. And I want to start by saying something that I think parents of teens need to hear. The sleep conversation does not necessarily get easier as kids get older. In fact, in many ways, it gets harder. And I say this not just as someone who works with tweens and teens, but as a parent of a tween and a teen.

There is a lot happening during these years. Their circadian rhythm shifts. The homework gets heavier. The social pressure gets bigger. The screens get more compelling. And the child who used to go to bed at 7:30 without much of a fight is now wide awake at 10 p.m. and telling you that they couldn’t go to sleep earlier even if they wanted to. But here’s the thing: sleep matters for them as much now as it did when they were a toddler. In fact, I could argue that it matters even more.

Today I want to help you understand what is actually happening to your tween and teen’s sleep, why it’s such a different beast at this age, and what you can actually do to help them. So let’s start with the biology piece of it because I think understanding this makes everything else make a little more sense.

As children go through puberty, their circadian rhythm genuinely shifts. Their strongest biological pull towards sleep, what I like to refer to as the sleep wave that they kind of catch to fall asleep, moves to a later time. A child who had a clear sleep wave at 7:30 might shift into middle school and now not feel that pull to sleep until 9, 9:30, 10. And then as they go into high school, they actually shift beyond their parents, sometimes later part of middle school into high school, where they might not feel that pull to sleep until closer to 11, possibly even later. And their natural morning wake time shifts later as well.

So suddenly that child of yours who is an early riser, mine used to wake at 5:50, can now sleep until 9 or 10 a.m. It’s somewhat mind-blowing. So their body naturally wants to go to sleep later at night, but also wake up later in the morning. The problem is that school start times don’t shift with our children’s circadian rhythms. Most middle and high schoolers are going to need to be up between 6, 7 a.m., maybe a little bit later, but not much, on school days. And when you combine a circadian rhythm that wants to sleep, I don’t know, at 11 p.m. till 9 a.m. with a school schedule that requires, let’s say, a 6:30 wake time, you get a teenager who is chronically sleep-deprived because the math simply doesn’t work.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Sleep Medicines recommended range for 11 to 12 year olds is 9 to 12 hours of sleep, and for 13 to 18-year-olds is 8 to 10 hours of sleep. So let’s sit with that for a moment. If your middle schooler needs to be up at 6:30, and they need nine hours of sleep, that means that they need to be asleep by 9:30. Not in bed scrolling or texting or even in bed reading. They need to be asleep. For most middle schoolers who have sports, homework, and a shifted circadian rhythm, that is a genuinely difficult target to hit every night. And many are getting far less sleep than they need, both in the middle school group and definitely in the high school group. The number of teens getting less than seven hours of sleep each night is steadily increasing. In fact, the data on how much sleep teens are actually getting is quite alarming.

A major study published in Pediatrics in May of 2026, which tracked 400,000 adolescents from 1991 to 2023, found that teen sleep is now at its lowest point in three decades. In 2021 to 2023, only 37% of 12 and 13-year-olds were getting at least seven hours of sleep per night. Less than 50% of our 12 and 13-year-olds wee getting seven hours of sleep. And by ages 18 and 19, that number dropped to just 22%. And remember, if we’re just looking at the 18 and 19-year-old group, they need eight to 10 hours of sleep. And the vast majority of them, close to 80%, aren’t even hitting seven.

I spoke with a 12th grader named Lizzie back in episode 187, Lizzie had done an incredible capstone research project on the correlation between teen sleep, anxiety, and screens. As part of her research, she surveyed the upper school at her school, which was grades 9 through 12, and she found that around 70% of her peers were not getting the optimal amount of sleep. Most were sleeping somewhere in the four to six hour range on school nights. So not eight to ten, just four to six. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I really encourage you to go back and check it out. It’s episode 187. Lizzie’s perspective as a teenager who lived through having a very stressful period, which was directly related to her being sleep deprived, researched it academically, and came out on the other side in a really powerful, knowledgeable place. So it’s a fantastic episode for you to check out if you have a teenager or you are preparing to have a teenager.

So, just like I talked about in last week’s episode on elementary schoolers, there’s a difference between getting enough sleep to get by and getting enough sleep to truly thrive. And for tweens and teens, the signs of getting by can be easy to miss or easily explained away by the fact that they’re just teenagers. So let’s talk about the signs that your tween or teen might be getting sleep just enough to get by. They may have a hard time waking up in the morning, or you may feel like you’re constantly having to remind them that it’s time to get up so it feels like a battle. They have irritability, mood swings, more conflicts at home or at school. Teachers are noting distractibility or unfinished work. They’re having academic struggles or underperformance relative to what you believe their ability is. They’re struggling with sports performance, motivation, or stamina, or they’re dealing with noteworthy injuries that keep popping up. They may be getting sick more often. They’re experiencing anxiety or depression that feels above their baseline and what you’re used to. And so sometimes that’s not just going through puberty or being a teenager. It’s actually being sleep-deprived.

So let’s talk about what it looks like for teens who are getting sleep that’s setting them up to thrive. They are able to wake up most mornings without a major battle. They’re handling stress, social drama, and disappointment with more resilience. Doesn’t mean they don’t dislike it, but they’re showing more resilience. They’re able to focus on their homework without constant reminders. They have energy for their after-school activities. They’re retaining what they’re learning at school without excessively needing to cram before every test. And they’re generally more pleasant to be around.

So, why should we care so much about our tweens and teens sleep? I want to be really direct about this because I think parents and teens often underestimate the consequences of not getting adequate sleep. They are making their lives so much harder. Sleep before learning, so before they go into classroom to hear the teacher teach, sets the brain up to actually absorb that new information. And then sleep after that time in the classroom and learning helps the brain organize and figure out where to store it. And then sleep before a test allows the brain to actually go back and retrieve what it has stored. So a poor night of sleep before school makes it hard for a child to take in what is taught in the classroom. A poor night of sleep after a day of learning makes it hard for a child to remember what they learned that day. The late nighter before a big exam is not just unhelpful, it is actively counterproductive because it affects the brain’s ability to retrieve what the student studied the night before. Research shows that at a certain point of sleep deprivation, a student is far better off sleeping than studying. The information that they are studying, if they take it too far, it simply won’t stick well in a sleep-deprived brain. And if I could go back and do college differently, I absolutely would because I was so guilty of doing this.

And it goes beyond academics. Sleep deprivation in adolescence is directly linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression at every single age. The relationship between poor sleep and anxiety in teens is one of the clearest findings in adolescent sleep research. An overtired teen is more likely to be an anxious teen. An anxious teen struggles to sleep. And then the cycle can feed itself. If you’re teen is dealing with anxiety, sleep is always one of the first places to look to help them feel better.

But of course, the biggest challenge that many of us are facing here is that school start times don’t align with our tween or teen’s natural circadian rhythm. But I do have some good news on this front. And it’s something that I really want to stress. Just because their ideal rhythm is later, that doesn’t mean that they cannot fall asleep earlier. It just means that it’s going to require more intentionality in order for them to be able to fall asleep earlier and get that sleep they need to thrive.

There are three things that work together to help a tween or teen fall asleep more easily at an earlier time and sleep more soundly. It’s a combo of their circadian rhythm, sleep pressure, and pre-bedtime habits. So if we start with the circadian rhythm, which we’ve already been talking about, puberty is going to shift that later. That means that our tween and teens natural pull to sleep is later, but that’s not the same as saying they can’t fall asleep earlier. It’s just easier for them to not fall asleep earlier like they used to. So, two things that can make it easier for our tweens and teens to fall asleep at an earlier time that sets them up to get the right amount of sleep are good pre-bedtime habits, which I’m going to discuss in a minute, and consistent sleep schedules. If your tween or teen often stays up until 11 p.m. or midnight on weekends, and then does sleep until 9 or 10 in the morning, they might be getting enough sleep, but it’s going to be hard for them to then go to sleep at 9:30 come Sunday night. Their circadian rhythm is confused and they won’t have enough of the second piece of this puzzle, which is sleep pressure.

When they go to bed late on Sunday, because they didn’t have enough sleep pressure and their body is naturally drawn to the rhythm that’s later, they start Monday sleep deprived. And we kind of refer to that as social jet lag. And it makes the whole school week significantly harder because we get off on the wrong foot. I know from personal experience that it gets harder as kids get older to maintain those bedtimes, but try to keep your tween and teen sleeping hours, like their bedtime and wake time, somewhat consistent.

So my middle schoolers are not at the point where they want to be out every weekend night. And because of that, they’re often home. And I do not let them just stay up to stay up. If we are not doing something unique as a family or they aren’t out having a late over with friends, I have them go to bed at their normal bedtime. So for my 12-year-old, that’s like, you know, around eight o’clock, 7:30, 8. And for my 13-year-old, that’s going to be 9, 9:30. That way their body’s rhythm that they’re used to is fairly consistent throughout the week. And they aren’t sleeping in crazy late on Saturday and Sunday and then struggling to go into the school week when they wake up at a somewhat typical time on Sunday, they’re going to have adequate sleep pressure to help them go to bed Sunday night. That’s going to set them up to get adequate sleep going into Monday.

I want to explain a bit more about sleep pressure because I think it’s going to help you understand why sleeping in late on the weekends or napping can be a big issue for teens in particular. Sleep pressure builds the longer that you are awake. This is why sleeping in late on the weekends or taking a long nap can be really counterproductive. These two things can absolutely kill the sleep pressure that your tween or teen needs in order to fall asleep at a reasonable hour at night.

And I want to say something specific about naps because I think it’s really an important signal that parents sometimes miss. And I’m hearing more and more about teens napping. A healthy teenager who is suddenly wanting to nap regularly is sending you a message. The nap is the red flag. If they don’t have another health issue, it almost always means they are not getting enough sleep at night to keep them in that thrive category. And it may feel like naps are a solution. And I understand that thought process, especially on a weekend when your teen seems exhausted. But a long nap in the afternoon kills their sleep pressure for that night, which means they’re going to struggle to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, which means they’re not going to get adequate sleep at night. They’re going to wake up the next morning sleep deprived. Again, which means they’re more likely to want to nap again. And it becomes a cycle that is working against what we’re trying to do, which is get them adequate sleep at night.

So if your teen is napping regularly, that is your clue to look hard at their nighttime sleep. How much are they actually getting? What time are they going to bed and getting up in the morning? What are their pre-bedtime habits? That’s where the real fix lies. Not in a nap.

Now let’s talk about the pre-bedtime habits because it can make an enormous difference, and parents can set their tweens and teens up for success here. Let me give you the specific things that make the biggest difference for this age group. Number one, keep screens out of the bedroom and ideally off at least 30 minutes before sleep. This is the single most impactful change that most families can make.

Screens can delay melatonin production and affect sleep quality throughout the night, even once you’ve turned them off. But beyond the light of the screen having a negative impact, the social and emotional stimulation of being on a phone at 10 p.m. keeps a teen’s brain in a completely active state. Neither of my daughters are allowed to have screens in their bedrooms, not even their computers to do their homework. I know that holding that boundary at this age is genuinely hard. I know because I’m doing it, but it is worth it.

Back in episode 187, Lizzie shared that when she started keeping screens out of her bedroom and avoiding them in the hour before bedtime, she started sleeping through the night for the first time in as long as she could remember.

Another thing that we don’t always think about is late-night snacking. When teens eat especially high sugar or high carb foods right before bed, it causes a blood sugar spike followed by a crash that can trigger restlessness and night wakings. If your teen is hungry after a late practice, offer a protein and a complex carb combination: cheese and crackers, yogurt, a handful of nuts. Something that digests steadily rather than spiking their blood sugar right before they want to go to sleep.

On the note of exercise right before bedtime, exercise is wonderful for sleep. Ideally, though, it’s when it happens earlier in the day. Intense exercise in the hour or two before bed releases adrenaline and cortisol that can make falling asleep much harder. I mean, I will tell you now, when I play my evening tennis matches, it’s guaranteed I’m up until at least 11. But I completely understand that late practices are sometimes unavoidable as our kids get older. My own daughter has had a 7 to 9 p.m. basketball practice in recent years. But you want those late practice nights to ideally be the exception, not the rule.

And I don’t recommend your teen, if they have a night where they don’t have to be at practice or a game, hitting the gym late in the evening if they don’t absolutely have to. We want to find a way to either shift that exercise to before school, depending on when they go to bed and how much sleep they’re getting, or right after school if we can. And the best way to help your teen recover from the nights where they do have a late practice or a game or a night out with friends is to protect their sleep on all the other nights. So just because some nights have to be later doesn’t mean you need to let all the nights be later.

Now let’s talk about bedtime routines. I know the phrase bedtime routine may sound babyish for a tween or teenager, but the practice of having a bedtime routine matters at every age, even for adults. So it can be simple shower, brush teeth, read for 15 minutes, lights out. Or stretch, meditate with an app like Calm or Headspace, and then turn the lights out. You have to do a little testing to see what works for your teen. A consistent wind down signals to the brain that it is time to get ready for sleep.

Think about the bedroom setup as well, just like we would with an infant. So you want the room to be dark and you want the room to be cool. 66 to 70 degrees is optimal. In our house, my girls definitely sleep best when it is 66 degrees for sleep. And try to encourage or hold them to this, but not falling asleep to music, a podcast, or a TV. I don’t recommend TVs in the rooms at all. But not falling asleep to something can also really improve the quality of their sleep. Because when we fall asleep listening to something, the brain stays in a more active state and it can make it more likely that your child has a night waking or that they just don’t get as high a quality and restorative sleep.

I also want to touch on melatonin directly here because it comes up constantly with this age group. And it’s just something that’s different. When we were all growing up, when we the parents were growing up, melatonin was not a thing. But a 2024 survey found that nearly forty-five percent of parents have given melatonin to a child under eighteen. And I get the impulse or interest in possibly doing that if you have a teenager who is struggling to fall asleep and you want to help them. But here’s what concerns me about melatonin at this age group specifically. Melatonin is not well studied in adolescence for long-term use. And there is emerging concern about the impact it has leading up to and through puberty because melatonin release changes in that window. And perhaps most importantly for this age group is teens can start to believe that they need melatonin to sleep. And sleep is a head game for so many people. So many adults can relate to that. And I’ve heard from many teens and parents of teens that they don’t think that they can sleep without melatonin. When a teenager develops the belief that they cannot fall asleep on their own without a supplement, that belief itself becomes a barrier to their sleep. So, my strong preference is always to focus on the habits and the environment that support your teen’s body in producing its own melatonin naturally.

If you’re listening to this and you think it’s time to put some new boundaries in place to help your tween or teen get more sleep, you’re going to have to talk to them about it. Explain what you’ve learned about sleep. I like to say that parents are not born knowing everything. Know better, do better. When I learn something new, I just straight up tell them I did not know this. And now that I know, we’re going to change XYZ. So explain why sleep is so important. Tell them what you’re going to do to help them get more sleep. Keep screens out of their room or remove them by a certain time. Help them focus on their homework during their busy weekdays rather than letting them spend a bunch of time chatting with their friends over text or Google chat. Have them finish their work and then decide how much time they have to chat so that they can still go to bed at a reasonable time.

I cannot tell you how many parents say their kids are doing homework until midnight or 1 a.m. But if you actually dig a little bit deeper, they’re spending a lot of time chatting or texting with friends and not just focusing on their homework. Talk to them about experimenting with a simple and consistent bedtime routine. Do evening 10-minute guided stretches with them. I’ve done this with my daughter, and we both like it. So it helps her fall asleep, it helps with her soreness, and it helps me as well.

If your teen pushes back on an earlier bedtime or trying to have better sleep habits, that’s okay. It’s okay for them to push back, and it’s okay for you to hold the boundary. Treat the whole thing like an experiment. Try it your way for two weeks and then you guys can sit and have a conversation if you notice any difference. If you see a difference in them, if they feel a difference.

And I know that this is all easier said than done with tweens and teenagers because I have them. But I also know from my own experience and from the experience I have with all the families that I work with, that the tweens and teens who get adequate sleep perform better, feel better, and are genuinely more resilient, even if they don’t want to admit it.

As I record this episode, it’s the end of July, and my own teen has shifted to a complete summer sleep schedule of like 10:30 p.m. bedtime and not waking up until 9 a.m. when she has to go to swim. And when the school year starts, she’s going to have to be up at 6:30. So to help her get ready for the school year, in the week leading up to that first day of school, I’m going to be waking her up at 7 a.m. And I’m going to be having her go to bed at nine. Is she going to moan and complain about it? You bet. Will she be able to go to bed every night at nine during the school year? Nope. But will that be the target whenever possible? Yes. And when she’s giving me her 13-year-old attitude and telling me how none of the other parents make their teens go to bed this early, I will remind myself that it’s my job to hold boundaries that set her up to thrive academically and to protect her mental health. I can do hard things, even when I don’t enjoy them.

So to wrap up, tween and teen sleep is often more challenging to navigate than even when they were younger. Their biology is working against them with our current school timing at least in this country. The sports schedules are often also working against them. The screens and social pressures are working against them. But sleep still matters enormously. It matters for learning, for mental health, for athletic performance, for emotional regulation, and for safety. We didn’t even go into the driving safety piece. That could be a whole episode in and of itself.

Your job as a parent is to protect their sleep as much as you can, even as they get older, even as they push back, even as it gets harder to hold the line. Keep screens out of the bedroom when they should be sleeping. Hold a consistent schedule to the very best of your ability, including on the weekends when they are home and around. Help your child create a bedtime and a window down routine and keep having the conversation, even if it feels like it’s going nowhere.

Because as Lizzie said so beautifully in our conversation, you can’t expect teens to prioritize something that they haven’t been taught matters. So plant the seed and hold the boundary. And know that the well-rested teenager in your house will be better equipped for everything school and life throws at them.

If this episode was helpful, share it with another parent of a tween or a teen who might need to hear this. And as always, thanks for listening. Here’s to a fantastic school year. Bye for now.