Fulfill Your Children’s Sleeping Need to Optimize Growth and Development

During the process of children growth and development, sleeping has an important role, as important as nutrition and stimulation. Sometimes, our daily activity limits our children sleeping time, for example a packed schedule, or home location far away from activity site.

Sleeping habit is made from a combination of good sleeping duration, a good sleeping quality, and sleep schedule that fits the children’s biologic rhythm. If one of these points is not fulfilled, your children are at risk of developing sleeping disturbance. Lack of sleep might cause many spike in children’s brain and trigger the release of stress hormone. This statement was delivered by Jeffren y Durmer, MD, PhD, a sleep specialist from Atlanta, United States.

Then, how long is the recommended sleeping duration for children? Here is a common guidance for sleeping duration for children based on their age:

Age 1-3 years old: Sleeping duration is 12-24 hours per day

When your children reach the age 18-21 months old, they will have a change in sleep pattern. They can have one period of sleep in the afternoon, and they will continue their sleeping at night. For children aged 21-36 months, they will have one period of sleep in the afternoon for 1-3 hours. Night sleep will begin at 19.00 or 21.00, then they will wake up between 06.00 or 08.00

Age 3-6 years old: sleeping duration is 10-12 hours per day

For 3 years old children, an afternoon nap is still a normal routine. For, 5 years old children, afternoon nap is no longer a routine activity, and sleeping duration starts to decrease. Generally speaking, children within this age range start to sleep at 19.00 to 21.00 and wake up at 06.00 to 08.00.

Age 7-12 years old: sleeping duration 10-11 hours per day

At this age range, the children’s activity, like going to school and family gathering, will consume most of their time and decrease their sleeping duration. The total time spent for sleeping is 9 to 12 hours a day, with the average of 9 hours.

To make a good sleeping routine, you can apply these following steps:

• Make a fix schedule for sleeping time. The time should be the same every day. For holiday, the time for waking up should not be too different from your children previous habit, the difference should not exceed 1-1.5 hours.
• Make your children comfortable when they are about to sleep. A warm bath or nighttime story telling is a good idea to comfort your children.
• Make sure the room temperature is comfortable for your children and switch off the light.
• Avoid putting television or gadget in the room. Or just make sure to turn off the gadget one hour before sleeping time.