Pediatricians get asked about sleep regularly.  Whether it is the bleary-eyed parents of newborns, desperate for at least a three-hour stretch, or the bleary-eyed parents of adolescents, wondering how to get their kids to fall asleep before 1 a.m. on a weeknight and wake-up before 1 p.m. on a weekend, we talk to a lot of families about sleep.  And that’s appropriate because sleep is one of the essential elements of good health.  Getting enough sleep on a regular basis has been tied to all kinds of improved health measures: better mental health, emotional regulation and behavior, attention and learning, and just overall quality of life.  

While lack of sleep affects people of all ages, parents of young children exhausted by their inadequate sleep often focus worries on that age, but teenagers who are not sleeping enough actually have an increased risk of injury.  Adolescents who regularly do not get enough sleep have increased risks of obesity, problems with attention, and mood instability.  They also have a greater likelihood of risky health behaviors, including substance use, sports injuries, and car accidents. 

How much sleep do our kids need?  According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, infants out of the newborn period should sleep 12-16 hours per day, kids 1-2 years old should sleep 11-14 hours per day, and kids 3-5 years old should sleep 10-13 hours per day – counting overnight sleep and naps in those 24-hour totals.  Once kids are school aged (6-12 years old), they need 9-12 hours a night while teenagers need 8-10 hours per night.  For a lot of parents, these amounts are surprising – and nowhere close to what is happening in their homes.   

How can we help our kids get the sleep they need to function at their very best — physically, emotionally, and academically?  The hardest task may be modeling good sleep habits as adults.  Across the U.S., 35% of adults get less than the recommended minimum seven hours of sleep per night.  If we want our children to prioritize sleep, we need to prioritize it in ourselves.  Showing our children that sleep is important through our actions communicates to them that it is important. 

We can do this by developing a regular household night-time routine that tells our minds and bodies that it’s time to start winding down and getting ready to close up shop for the night.  The couple of hours before we intend to fall asleep are key to making that transition smoothly.  Help your child develop a pre-sleep routine that they do at about the same time every night – weekdays and weekends.  There is a lot of research that teenagers who run on deficient sleep through the week and attempt to catch-up on weekends are chronically under slept.  The ideal sleep pattern for all ages is to go to sleep and wake-up about the same time every day.  Pick a time and create a nightly plan for your family that most of all includes putting away screens.  That’s not easy for any of us, but one hour of no-screen time before bed and no screens in bedrooms signals to the brain that it is time to get ready to sleep and the bedroom is the place for that to happen.  Other environmental changes that can help are dimming the lights, playing calm music, taking a shower or a bath, and settling into bed with a book, either read to younger children or let older children read on their own. 

While introducing very young children to a nighttime routine can help set good sleep habits from the start, I often talk with teenagers who are routinely staying up until 2 or 3 a.m.  When that’s the case, we work together to slowly alter their sleep times to get them back into a schedule that helps them be their best at school and at home. A key piece of that is always modifying use of screens, but also getting daily exercise, ideally outdoors to help reset their day/night schedule, and limiting caffeine intake. 

Let’s put sleep up there with nutritious foods and regular movement as a key to creating long term health for our families.  It will benefit our children in many ways and help them create healthier sleep habits for life.  Plus, we get to work on demonstrating good sleep behavior for them, and can’t we all use a little more sweet sleep? 

For more information about sleep in kids and teenagers, try HealthyChildren.org, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine at aasm.org, or CDC.gov. 

If you want to make an appointment to see a provider to talk about sleep, or any other concern about your child, call the Southern Ute Health Center at 970-563-4581.