{"id":251,"date":"2016-09-07T09:18:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T09:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/?p=251"},"modified":"2016-08-21T09:20:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T09:20:36","slug":"are-your-children-getting-enough-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/2016\/09\/are-your-children-getting-enough-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Are your children getting enough sleep?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As adults, we know the importance of sleep and how bad we feel when we don\u2019t get enough of it.\u00a0 But kids<\/a> don\u2019t quite get this and are constantly engaged in a battle with their parents to be up later and sleep less. While giving in to them and letting them have the odd late night isn\u2019t going to have a serious impact, consistently not getting enough sleep has been connected with a number of other problems as well as declining results at school.\u00a0 But\u00a0are your kids getting enough sleep?<\/span><\/p>\n

Importance of sleep on education<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone needs a different amount of sleep and the activities of the day<\/a> can also have an effect on this. There are also two types of sleep \u2013 NREM and REM.\u00a0 NREM sleep, or non-rapid eye movement is also called quiet sleep and this is where the energy levels are restored, the body works on any repairs that are needed and the hormones controlling growth and development are sent out into the body. The other type, REM or rapid eye movement sleep is known as active sleep \u2013 this is the time when we dream and our brains are active but at the same time, our bodies are immobile with both breathing and heart rates being irregular.<\/span><\/p>\n

A baby spends around half of their sleep times in each of these states and each sleep time is around 50 minutes long.\u00a0 By the age of six months, REM sleep accounts for around 30% of the sleep time and by preschool age, this sleep time reaches around 90 minutes at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a general rule, for the first two months of life, a baby needs anywhere from 10 to 18 hours sleep a night.\u00a0 From two to twelve months, this levels out to 14-15 hours and between one and three years, this falls to 12-14 hours.\u00a0 Once they reach three to five years, around 12 hours is about right while in junior school years from five to twelve, 10 or 11 hours will normally suffice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleep becomes even more important when kids reach school age. A good night\u2019s sleep ensures they can pay better attention at school, be more creative and even come up with new ideas in class.\u00a0 They will be better at solving problems and more sociable with other kids and adults.\u00a0 They can even fight off illness better.\u00a0 On the turn side, if they don\u2019t sleep enough, they are liable to forget what they learn, be bad tempered and lack the energy to play games or sports. They won\u2019t have any patience with others and their attention span will suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tips<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the big tips for a good night sleep for younger kids is to have a good sleep routine.\u00a0 This means that kids know what to expect, what is going to happen and when they will be going to sleep.\u00a0 One example from the Sleep for Kids website is along the lines of:<\/span><\/p>\n

Have supper, a light snack<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a bath or shower then put in pyjamas or other sleepwear<\/span><\/p>\n

Brush teeth<\/span><\/p>\n

Read a story in a room that is quiet and at a comfortable temperature<\/span><\/p>\n

Put the child into bed, say goodnight and leave the room<\/span><\/p>\n

Repeat this routine each night and avoid watching TV or videos just before they go into the routine.\u00a0 This is shown to make going to sleep more difficult so ensure they do something non-stimulating before bed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t use bed as a negative, telling them they are going to bed if they don\u2019t do or stop doing something \u2013 this makes going to bed a bad thing and will make them want to find ways not to do it.\u00a0 Also, try to show that everyone in the house is getting ready for bed as kids often want to stay up for fear of missing out on something.\u00a0 If they think everyone else is getting ready for bed, this can lessen the urge to find ways to stay downstairs and awake.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As adults, we know the importance of sleep and how bad we feel when we don\u2019t get enough of it.\u00a0 But kids don\u2019t quite get this and are constantly engaged in a battle with their parents to be up later and sleep less. While giving in to them and letting them have the odd late … Continue reading “Are your children getting enough sleep?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,55,42],"tags":[71,87,70,79],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun","category-kids","category-outdoor-play","tag-children","tag-family","tag-find","tag-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}