Sleep Basics

By Vincent Iannelli, M.D. http://pediatrics.about.com/od/sleep
Like adults, children often don’t get enough sleep at night.  Unfortunately, not getting enough sleep and being sleep-deprived can have serious consequences.
 

Children’s Sleep Needs

Before you can know if your child is getting enough sleep, it can help to know how much sleep you should expect your child to get. Children’s sleep needs depend on their age:

• Newborn – 16 hours
• Infants – 12 to 14 hours (including up to 4 1/2 hours of daytime sleep in 2 to 4 naps)
• Toddlers – 12 hours (including up to 2 1/2 hours of daytime sleep in 1 to 2 naps)
• Preschoolers – 11 hours (including up to 2 hours of daytime sleep in 1 nap)
• School age (6-8 years old) – 10 to 11 hours
• Teens (9-12 years old) – 10 hours
• Teens – 9 hours

In general, you should expect your child to be within a half hour to one hour of these sleep requirements. Talk to your pediatrician if your child is sleeping much more or less than this, although it may still be normal if your child is healthy, happy, and growing and developing normally.

Are Your Children Getting Enough Sleep?

If not, they may:

• have trouble waking up in the morning
• be sleepy during the day
• sleep in on the weekends to try and make up for not getting enough sleep on school days have specific symptoms of being sleep-deprived, such as being irritable or aggressive, having a short attention span, or being hyperactive, many of which are similar to the symptoms of ADHD

In addition to simply having a late bedtime or waking up frequently because of poor sleep habits, children may not get enough sleep if they have obstructive sleep apnea, night terrors or nightmares, restless leg syndrome, asthma (up coughing), and eczema (up itching). Talk to your pediatrician if your child has any of these problems, especially if you think it is interfering with your child’s sleep.

Great Fun, Great Learning

At Royal Tots Day Care, children do fun activities that contribute to their physical, cognitive, and psychological development. In our day care, activities are set up by themes. This first week of August, we have “Let’s Play with Numbers”. Children do monkey line, number hunt, road blocks, number puzzle, etc. They also learn how to take turn in the activities were set up.

The routines run every day, we give them pattern to play, to take a nap, snack time, dinner time, brush teeth after dinner. At first some children need effort to take a nap, but now they are in the pattern already and they take a nap easily at the afternoon.

They also have time to interact each other when they explore themselves in the imagination room or daycare room before go home. This month some themes have been setting up such as “Be the Explorer”, “I’m Special”, and “The Senses”.