Catch some zzz

Do we really need to think about sleep where babies and toddlers are concerned? Won’t they just sleep when they are tired? Is sleep really worth all this trouble? Read on as Himani Dalmia tells you how much sleep matters

In the past couple of decades, nutrition has gained a lot of focus. There is increasing awareness amongst parents and medical professionals that “food is medicine” and that the right nutrition being offered to babies and young children lays the building blocks for lifelong health. The approach is indeed mindful but sleep is the next frontier where early development is concerned. Parents and experts are now only beginning to understand the importance of this critical building block. In truth, “sleep is medicine” and is absolutely critical to a baby’s development. Here are some of the areas it impacts:

Growth: The growth hormone is primarily secreted during deep sleep (and usually in the hours of sleep before midnight, one of the reasons an early bedtime is recommended).

The heart: Sleep helps to regulate blood glucose as well as the amount of cortisol or stress hormones being produced, hence protecting against vascular damage and diabetes.

Obesity: Sleep deprivation impacts the production of the hormone, leptin, which signals to our body that we are full. Without this hormone, we continue to eat. Over time, kids who do not get enough sleep can become obese. Also, tired kids crave high-fat foods and they also tend to be more sedentary.

Immunity: Proteins called cytokines are produced during sleep, which helps us to fight infection, illness and stress. It’s been found that adults who sleep fewer than seven hours per night are almost three times more likely to develop a cold when exposed to that virus than those who sleep eight or more hours. While there’s little data on young children, studies of teens have found that repeated bouts of illness declined with longer stretches of sleep at night. Poor sleep negatively impacts gut health, which in turn leads to lower immunity as well.

Attention span: Studies have shown that children who consistently sleep fewer than ten hours a night before age three are three times more likely to have hyperactivity and impulsivity problems by age six. For school-age kids, research has shown that adding as little as 27 minutes of extra sleep per night makes it easier for them to manage their moods and impulses so they can focus on schoolwork.

Ability to learn: Children make neural connections and store what they have learned through the day in their brains while they are sleeping at night. Short-term memory is also converted into long-term memory during sleep. Daytime naps (up till the age of 5 years) play an extremely important role in learning. There is a lot of research ongoing that shows the myriad ways in which sleep affects human beings. After all, young ones spend 12-18 hours sleeping. Adults also spend one-third of their day sleeping. If sleep did not have a major biological purpose, this would be a big goof-up on the part of evolution! However, as any young parent will tell us, babies and toddlers are notoriously difficult sleepers. They take short naps, resist sleep, wake frequently at night, and often sleep at odd hours of the day. Moreover, there is precious little reliable information available about this elusive subject. The first step to “sleep parenting” is acknowledging that parents have to support the child to sleep. We help our babies to eat, bathe, play, walk, learn, talk and, and yet, somehow we assume that parenting ends when the baby is asleep. Sleep parenting involves:

Observing cues: Babies and toddlers show sleep cues in stages. It is important to understand and observe for early sleep cues (like rubbing eyes) and not wait for late cues (like crying). The body produces the stress hormone, cortisol, when overtired, which disrupts sleep.

Age-appropriate routines: The right number of naps and wake times for the baby’s age, early bedtime and sufficient night sleep.

Feeding or rocking to sleep: It is biologically normal for babies and young toddlers to sleep while nursing/bottle feeding or while being walked/rocked in arms up till the age of 3.5 to 4 years. These are not “bad sleep habits”.

Providing the safety of physical contact: Young babies have a biological survival instinct that makes them seek comfort and security from physical contact. This is one vital example of how parenting does not end when the baby is asleep. Babies often need to be held in the warmth of our arms for their naps. They also sleep better when bed-sharing with their parents day or night. These are healthy, safe and biologically normal practices.

(Himani Dalmia is an Australian certified Infant and Child Sleep Specialist, and the co-author of Sleeping Like A Baby published by Penguin India).