4 Essential Sleep Habits for Kids
Healthy Kids from Teeth to Feet: Kids & Health
By Peg Rosen for Healthy Kids from Teeth to Feet
A good night’s sleep for grade-schoolers and teens means at least 10 hours of solid shut-eye, according to the National Institutes of Health. For preschoolers, it’s 11-12 hours, and for babies it’s up to 18. But many kids are falling short … and paying the price.
New research from The University of Chicago suggests that youngsters who don’t get enough rest are more than four times as likely to be obese as their well-rested counterparts; sleep deprivation has been shown to disrupt levels of chemicals that regulate appetite. And Spanish researchers recently found that kids who don’t log an adequate amount of shut-eye are more likely to struggle in the classroom, where poor sleep habits hinder their motivation and compromise their ability to concentrate, memorize, write and spell.
One of the biggest sleep-snatchers is electronics, according to Timothy F. Hoban, director of pediatric sleep medicine at the University of Michigan Medical Center. “Thirty years ago, there were no game systems, personal computers or mobile phones. This technology is now commonplace and often available in the child’s own room,” he says. But bad sleep habits are also to blame.
Here are Hoban’s top tips for getting your kids’ sleep situation under control:
has contributed to numerous magazines and websites, including Healthy Kids, MORE, Redbook, SELF, Real Simple, Parents, Family Circle, American Baby, ParentCenter.com and WebMD.com. She blogs at Relish-This.Blogspot.com.