Bedtime

{{Short description|Time of transition from wakefulness to sleep}}

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{{redirect|Bedtimes|the monthly magazine|BedTimes}}

File:Child Asleep (The Rosebud) MET DT275484.jpg (1841)]]

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Bedtime (also called putting to bed or tucking in) is a ritual part of parenting to help children feel more secure and become accustomed to a more rigid schedule of sleep than they might prefer. The ritual of bedtime is aimed at facilitating the transition from wakefulness to sleep.{{Cite journal|last1=Hale|first1=Lauren|last2=Berger|first2=Lawrence M.|last3=LeBourgeois|first3=Monique K.|last4=Brooks-Gunn|first4=Jeanne|title=Social and Demographic Predictors of Preschoolersʼ Bedtime Routines|journal=Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics|volume=30|issue=5|pages=394–402|doi=10.1097/dbp.0b013e3181ba0e64|pmid=19745760|pmc=2793084|year=2009}} It may involve bedtime stories, children's songs, nursery rhymes, bed-making and getting children to change into nightwear. In some religious households, prayers are said shortly before going to bed.A Scottish prayer: "I am going now into the sleep, / Be it that I in health shall wake; / If death be to me in deathly sleep, / Be it that in thine own arm's keep, / O God of grace, to new life I wake; / O be it in thy dear arm's keep, / O God of grace, that I shall awake!" (from Poems of the Western Highlanders, 1900; in The Oxford Book of Prayer, general editor: George Appleton. Oxford University Press; no. 325 at p. 101) Sleep training may be part of the bedtime ritual for babies and toddlers.{{cite web |title=Sleep Training Truths: What Science Can (And Can't) Tell Us About Crying it Out |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/15/730339536/sleep-training-truths-what-science-can-and-cant-tell-us-about-crying-it-out |website=NPR |date=July 15, 2019}}

In adult use, the term means simply "time for bed", similar to curfew, as in "It's past my bedtime". Some people are accustomed to drinking a nightcap or herbal tea at bedtime. Sleeping coaches are also used to help individuals reach their bedtime goals.{{cite journal |last1=Ingrama, Mindellb, Puzinod, Walterse |title=A Survey of Practicing Sleep Coaches |journal=Behavioral Sleep Medicine |date=2018 |volume=16 |issue=13|pages=272–281 |doi=10.1080/15402002.2016.1188394|pmid=27362893 |s2cid=205887518 }} Researchers studying sleep are finding patterns revealing that cell phone use at night disturbs going to sleep at one's bedtime and achieving a good night's sleep.{{cite journal |last1=Weir |first1=Kristen |title=(Dis)Connected |journal=Monitor on Psychology |date=2017 |volume=1 |issue=43 |page=42|url=https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/03/cover-disconnected}}