How Much Sleep?

How much sleep does my child need?

That’s a great question, and even though you didn’t mention how old he or she is, every parent needs to have a good understanding of this. Children of different ages need different amounts of sleep. Here are the recommendations made by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP):

There are a couple of interesting points here. First, sleep patterns and average lengths of sleep have progressively declined over the past few decades, probably reflecting how our children entertain themselves with the use of electronic gadgets and games. Secondly, sleep times for children in the United States tend to be shorter than those in Australian and European children. This is especially true on weekdays, which is concerning, considering the adequate sleep needed for proper performance in school. In fact, it is estimated that more than 60 percent of U.S. adolescents get less than seven hours of sleep on weekday nights. This is a lot less than the recommended 8 to 10 hours for this age group. Not sure how much sleep your nine-year-old is getting? Or your fourteen-year-old? You’re not alone. Teenagers want their privacy. But this is important, and we need to pay attention. If you don’t know where your child fits on that table, you need to figure it out.

So how can I tell if my child isn’t getting enough sleep? And is it a big deal?

It’s a big deal, and here’s why. Sleep deficiency, from whatever cause, results in reduced alertness, impaired performance, and negative consequences for our health. These problems are largely behavioral and “performance” in nature, and more readily apparent in children than adults. This is true for all of us, but we’re going to consider how it impacts our children.

An expected first sign would be a decrease in attention and reaction time. For school-aged children, this can be manifested by your child’s ability to respond quickly and accurately to a host of things. At school, this can include the ability to perform well on computerized testing. They may be able to arrive at a correct answer, but it’s going to take them longer. Other concerns are an impairment in activities that require speed and accuracy, such as driving a car, taking a standardized test, or even crossing a busy highway. That should scare us.

Lack of sleep also results in an impairment of complex “cognitive functions.” These can include such things as decision making, selective attention, judgement, problem solving, multi-tasking, and time management. The list goes on, and these are obviously important for a child’s well-being and successful development, on many levels.

Academic performance is affected by sleep deprivation, and not in a good way. With greater lack of sleep, we see worsening academic success and school performance. This is obviously reflected in poor grades, but also with a loss of motivation to succeed, a poor self-image, and tension between student-teacher.

Sleep is known to be a critical and active part of the process of organizing our memory. Putting a book under your pillow is not going to help you learn something, but adequate sleep will help us organize and retain memories of things we have just learned. This is true for learning about specific facts, but also for motor skills and emotional processing. The importance of your toddler’s afternoon nap? It seems that a daytime nap will help your child consolidate learning memories and motor skill learning. So don’t rush to eliminate this part of their day.

Sleep deprivation has a significant and consistent impact on emotional and behavioral reactions. We’ll see increased irritability, moodiness, depression, and anger. (Sounds like a typical teenager, doesn’t it? But this is going to be worse.) Of significant concern is an increase in suicidal thoughts among those children with inadequate or disrupted sleep.

So there are a lot of things we can be aware of, look for, and then try to improve. The first step is to get a handle on the amount of sleep your child is getting, especially your teenager. If it doesn’t match the recommendations, make some changes. Lights out at a specific time is a good place to start—and that means all electronic devices. Only a little more sleep can make a big difference. In fact, as little as thirty minutes of additional sleep can provide measurable increases in school performance and behavior. Thirty minutes. Not much, but it will take a consistent effort.

My fourteen-year-old likes to catch up on his sleep on the weekend. Isn’t that okay?

Nope, in fact, it may be hurting rather than helping. Sleep patterns should be consistent, regardless of the day of the week. We’ve all heard of our “circadian rhythms.” This is an internal 24-hour clock that tells us when to sleep, when to wake up, even when to eat. There’s some variation among individuals, but this is usually associated with light and dark, daytime and nighttime. It can change some as we age, but is largely consistent, and when we disrupt this cycle, bad things happen. “Jet lag” is a prime example. Your teenager’s over-sleeping on the weekend (sometimes referred to as “weekend oversleep”—imagine that) can disrupt their circadian rhythm, compounding an already significant problem. The answer is to encourage a consistent and adequate sleep pattern, and it should start when your child is an infant. If that time has passed, make the right changes now. Tonight.