By Melissa Stefanec | MelissaStefanec@yahoo.com
In 2016, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine made some pretty wild recommendations about how much sleep kids should be getting.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and many others went on to endorse those wacky recommendations.
Why were these recommendations so wild?
Because, to many parents of school-age kids, those recommendations felt (and still feel) impossible.
AASM recommended that kids between ages 6 and 12 should get nine to 12 hours of sleep per night.
They also recommended that kids aged 13 to 18 should get eight to 10 hours per night.
These recommendations weren’t pulled from a land of fairy tales and whimsy. Instead, a panel of 13 sleep experts reviewed 864 scientific articles to create these recommendations.
If you ask most parents of school-age kids if their kids are sleeping that many hours, they would look at you like you are cuckoo.
Things like early bus pickup times, after-school clubs, sports, activities, travel leagues, college prep and screen time claim a lot of hours in our kids’ lives. It’s safe to wager that many of America’s children are not getting enough sleep.
The evil lurking right beneath our noses
Most parents work hard to protect our kids from the dangers in life — things like bullying, drugs, alcohol, predators, abuse, too much screen time and ill-willed people. However, many of us fail to recognize one of the biggest dangers to our kids’ well-being and development: a lack of sleep.
Modern childhood is demanding. A lot of kids are in numerous extra-curricular activities. Those activities are often intense and time-consuming. When these activities are combined with homework, jobs and copious amounts of screen time, many young brains are being pushed to the max. When we push our kids to their limits and they don’t get enough sleep, it can be a dangerous cocktail.
What does too little sleep do to a child’s brain?
Not getting enough does scary things to a kid’s brain. According to the National Institutes of Health, children who consistently get too little sleep experience a range of undesirable consequences.
Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep affects brain development. Not getting enough sleep can affect areas of the brain responsible for attention, memory and inhibition control. Getting too little sleep is associated with poor academic performance, behavioral issues and difficulty concentrating. Kids who get less sleep are more likely to develop depression, anxiety and aggressive behaviors than their well-slept peers. Sleep is wildly important to our children’s brain development.
Tricks for getting better quality sleep
It can be difficult for any of us to get a good night’s sleep. Our lives and habits are often contradictory to doing such. However, there are things we can do to help our kids sleep better. Making small and consistent changes can really add up over time. Here are some tips for helping your kid sleep better.
• Limit blue light — Exposure to blue light from screens suppresses melatonin production. Melatonin helps us relax and sleep. If your kid is watching TV, playing online games or looking at their phone before bed, it can be very disruptive to their sleep. Try to ditch screens at least 30 minutes before bed.
• Keep a consistent bedtime and wake time — It’s probably not realistic to have kids in bed at the same time every day of the week, especially as they get older. However, as much as possible, keep your kids’ bedtime consistent. Same goes for wake times.
• Get natural light during the day — Natural light is hard to come by in Central New York, especially during the winter. However, getting natural light, especially in the morning, can help kids regulate their sleep and wake cycles.
• Be wary of scary or violent entertainment — Graphic or unsettling content, whether it’s in shows, movies or video games, can impact how quickly a child falls asleep and their sleep quality. Understand your child’s threshold for such content.
• Don’t let pets in bed — Pets, especially ones that move around a lot, can have a negative impact on your child’s sleep. Save the cuddling for the waking hours.
• Keep your kids’ room dark, cool and quiet — There are so many gadgets that emit light. Use electrical tape to cover them if you can’t turn them off. Set the furnace at a lower night time temperature. Try to be quiet once your kids are in bed.
• Exercise during the day — Regular activity during the day will help your child sleep more. Try having them get moving after school and on the weekends.
• Stretch or meditate before bed — If your child has a hard time winding down, try some stretching or breathing exercises before bed. Try doing this together to create a feeling of collective calm.
• Be weary of caffeine — Caffeine is in many sports drinks, sodas, chocolates, lattes and other treats. Try to limit your child’s caffeine intake, especially in the eight hours before bed. This will give your child’s body time to metabolize the caffeine.
So, now that we are talking about sleep club, maybe we rank it as one of the most important activities on our kids’ calendars. Sleep club is the one club we should over-commit our kids to. Let’s all work to make sleep gas, fire, lit, gucci, dope and all the other words our kids say to mean, cool. Maybe, if we all unite, we can make sleep a canon event for our kids.