The guidelines released Monday are the first-ever for children from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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The paper revealed the detrimental consequences of children not getting enough sleep, showing how sleep patterns impact on both babies ‘ health and wellbeing.
According to the guidelines: Adequate sleep is linked with improved attention, behaviour, learning, mental and physical health at every age covered.
The NHS advice is however, more specific, recommending babies at one week old should be sleeping 16 hours – eight hours in the night and eight hours during naps.
Infants 4 to 12 months: 12 to 16 hours every 24 hours, including naps.
As per the new guidelines, children aged three to five should sleep for 10 to 13 hours a day.
The guidelines released today are the first for children from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
If children do not get proper sleep in night then they become vulnerable to injuries, hypertension, obesity and depression.
The recommendations follow a 10-month project conducted by a Pediatric Consensus Panel of 13 of the nation’s foremost sleep experts, and are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Sleep Research Society and the American Association of Sleep Technologists. The National Sleep Foundation has found that over 85 percent of teens lack adequate sleep.
In the case of children, aged between six and 12 should sleep between nine and 12 hours a day. There’s no scientific evidence linking an optimum number of hours sleep to a baby’s health for children in this age group. Sleep matters: “deprivation and tiredness affect schoolwork, attention, mood, interactions, unhealthy weight risk and lifelong health habits”, said Swanson, who also writes a popular health-focused parenting blog called Seattle Mama Doc. Younger infants aren’t included because they have a wide range of normal sleep patterns.
Therefore, experts recommend parents to turn off all screens at least 30 minutes before their children go to sleep. “So if you’re sitting in bed playing a shoot-em-up game, that’s not going to relax you and help you get to sleep”, Brooks said.
And it can be detrimental if kids are getting too much sleep.
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The research shows that if children manage to clock up the required amount of shut-eye it benefits both their health and overall happiness.
