Many Children Lack Adequate Sleep
While the sleep problems that can plague teens and adults are widely known, a new study reported in the medical journal Sleep finds many young children may not be getting enough sack time, either.
About 12 to 15 hours of sleep is usually recommended for children ages one to five, according to Christine Acebo, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Brown University Medical School.
She calls the new research "one of the first studies in a long time to look at the amount of sleep kids this age are getting, using objectives measured in the home other than surveys. They're not getting as much sleep as we think they should."
But in Acebo's study of 169 children, she found they fell short of that goal.
"When we looked at the full 24 hours (including naps), the older kids got less than 9.5 hours," says Acebo, who is with the Bradley Hospital Sleep and Chronobiology Research Laboratory, in Providence, R.I. "The 1-year-olds and the 2-year-olds got 10-and-a-half to 11."
"It's less than usually recommended - 12 to 15 hours is pretty standard," she says.
Previous studies have shown that not enough sleep in older children, teenagers, and adults may lead to physical and cognitive problems, including decreased physical performance, lower academic performance, and other daytime problems.
And several studies in adults linked lack of sleep to "neuroendocrine abnormalities" that may lead to overeating and obesity, the researchers say.
"We are concerned that the problem of too little sleep extends even to the youngest members of families, though we do not know if this puts them at risk for problems down the line," comments Acebo.
Acebo acknowledges that the sleep needs of young children have not been studied adequately, and that the 12-to-15-hour recommendation is an educated guess.
"We don't really know how much sleep kids this age need," she remarks. "Those studies have not been done." The recommendation is based on what experts think is the best amount to foster normal growth and development.
Acebo's team asked 169 children between ages 1 and 5 to wear activity monitors on their ankles or wrists that helped the researchers evaluate when they slept. The mothers also logged their children's sleep habits in diaries.
The researchers also visited the homes to interview the mothers and put the activity monitors - called an actigraph - on the children.
During the week, the researchers telephoned the mothers to ask about any problems or illnesses. A second home visit was done at the end of the week to collect the diary and the actigraph, which contained downloadable records of activity.
Another expert, Dr. Irwin Benuck, says the findings do not surprise him, but parents should not be alarmed.
"I think we have a lot to learn about sleep in kids and how much sleep they need," says Dr. Benuck, a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "I think it's a new area that is evolving right now."
The key, he notes, is for parents to pay attention to their child during waking hours to determine if he or she is getting enough sleep.
"The bottom line is how your kid is performing during the day," Dr. Benuck says. If you have a 5-year-old and hook him up to a monitor and he is sleeping eight-and-a-half hours at night and has a great day, participates in kindergarten and all his activities, and is not moody and sleepy, that child is probably doing fine, he says.
"If you have a kid who is moody during the day and not functioning to his ability, I think it's worth looking at what goes on at night," he adds. "If you have a child who has restless sleep and is snoring, take it up with your pediatrician."
In some cases, for instance, children have enlarged tonsils and when they are removed, the sleep quality improves, remarks Dr. Benuck.
Always consult your child's physician for more information.
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American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Pediatrics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Children's Study
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Sleep Foundation
Sleep
US Health and Human Services (HHS)
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What turns early-to-bed children into nocturnal teenagers who often do not hit the pillow until close to midnight?
New evidence supports the idea that adolescent sleep patterns are a natural part of growing up, not a matter of laziness, states a new report in Sleep.
A team of American and Swiss researchers found that it takes longer for teens to need to sleep after being kept awake, suggesting they have an unconscious natural inclination to go to bed - and wake up - later.
"This is another piece of the puzzle suggesting the need for later school times," says sleep researcher Dr. Robert Vorona, an associate professor of internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
In recent years, both researchers and school officials have begun to pay more attention to the sleep habits of teenagers and younger children.
Some schools have made start times later because of concerns that students are too sleepy to begin learning effectively at, say, 6:30 or 7:00 a.m.
Some sleep researchers suspect that teen sleep habits are closely linked to the physical effects of puberty and not a sign of sloth (as many parents still like to think) or of cultural influences such as late-night television.
Indeed, an estimated 7 percent to 16 percent of teens suffer from a condition called "delayed sleep phase syndrome," which makes them want to go to sleep and wake up much later than other people; only a tiny percentage of adults - fewer than one in 500 - have the same problem.
In the new study, researchers from Brown University and the University of Zurich recruited six teenagers and seven children who either had not reached puberty or were in the early stages of it.
Then they kept the students up for 36 hours to see how their sleep systems reacted.
The research team found that it took longer for the older teenagers to need sleep. This suggests there is a "biological imperative in teens to have a later bedtime and wake time," said Dr. Vorona, who has reviewed the findings.
The authors rightly state that more research is needed because the number of subjects in the study is small, Dr. Vorona said.
Still, he says there is plenty of evidence that teens need more sleep, and should not be forced to wake up too early.
Many researchers believe teens require nine or more hours of sleep, but that can be hard to achieve when they are being squeezed by early school start times and late hours filled with homework, athletics, work, and socializing.
"Inadequate sleep is problematic as it can impair academic performance, alter mood, and increase the risk of motor vehicle crashes," notes Dr. Vorona.
"Parents should understand that their high school students need more, not less, sleep than is assumed for optimal performance," he says. "They may also want to encourage those in positions of power to reorient bus and school schedules to allow a later start and end time for high school students."
Always consult your child's physician for more information.
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