Sleep is important for normal growth and development regardless of age. However, it is more important for kids to get enough sleep each night than adults as their bodies are growing. If you see infants sleeping most of the time and see rapid growth and development over the first year of their life, it is the same for toddler and young kids.
Unfortunately, there are more distractions now than the last time most adults were kids themselves. If play and a little television used to distract kids back in the days making them hate taking naps or sleeping early at night, smart gadgets are the latest craze these days. Most kids now have their own smartphones, iPad or tablet that they can use whenever they want. Parents are also mostly busy and unable to supervise what their kids watch or how often they stay glued to the screen.
Touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets are now fixtures of many households, so it comes as little surprise to learn that young children who don’t work or go to school are among their most active users. In the first study of its kind, researchers have learned that infants and toddlers who spend more time on these devices sleep less at night. It’s a troubling finding, but the reasons for these sleep disruptions are still unclear.
Traditional screen time, like television and video games, has been linked to sleep problems in children, but less is known about portable touchscreens, such as smartphones and tablets. In the first study to investigate potential links between touchscreens and sleep in young children, a research team led by Tim Smith from Birkbeck University of London has found that the same sleep disruption effect applies to these modern devices. By surveying parents about their kids’ touchscreen use and sleep patterns, these researchers have found that every additional hour of tablet or smartphone use among children between the ages of six months and three years results in about 15 minutes less total sleep. These findings now appear in Scientific Advances.
(Via: https://gizmodo.com/kids-who-use-touchscreen-devices-sleep-less-at-night-1794270842)
Allowing young kids to have daily continuous access to smart gadgets is the norm these days. Parents indulge their kids with unlimited gadget use so the youngsters can pass the time without bothering their busy and often stressed out parents.
There's been a sharp rise in the number of children admitted to hospital with sleep problems, and the North West has some of the worst numbers in the country.
Hospital attendance for sleeping disorders has tripled over last decade and it's claimed there're big gaps in support for parents across the North West.
Children have a hard time drifting off to sleep at night on a regular bedtime schedule because it’s mainly their parent’s fault for being too lenient. Everyone suffers when they lack sleep and you wouldn’t want to compromise the health of young kids because lost sleep is lost sleep, period.
Ogunbosi told NAN on Thursday that children under the age of five were often admitted into the hospital for sleep disorders.
“The most common cause of their sleep problem is ‘sleep apnoea’, where breathing is interrupted during sleep.
“However, sometimes there is no obvious cause of a child’s sleep problem.
“Children and teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep per night. Sleep problems and lack of sleep can have negative effects on a child’s performance at school.
“It could also affect the child’s extracurricular activities and social relationships.”
According to the paediatrician, accidents and injuries, behavioural problems, mood swings, memory and learning problems, performance problems and slow reaction to issues are often attributed to sleep disorder.
(Via: https://lifestyle.thecable.ng/children-teenagers-doctor-sleep/)
The problem is that kids these days get to tinker with technology at a very young age, which should not be the case. Parents should also enforce a regular bedtime schedule for kids to follow at all cost. Smart gadget use should be limited and they shouldn’t be allowed to access all sites that they want. Kids need enough sleep to rest and recharge like what adults need or they may end up lacking the energy to go through their day and feel tired and sleepy at school that may eventually affect their grades.
There are times when children also suffer from sleep disorders like sleep apnea despite their young age. They can benefit from GMSS: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/good-morning-snore-solution or the leader in the MAD field, the SnoreRX: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx to help them sleep better. Conventional treatments like CPAP and surgery are often not ideal for younger children because of the discomfort and risk involved. What’s easier to do is to take that gadget away from your kid and let him/her experience life first-hand and not through games or videos they see on the web. With active play, they would likely end up feeling exhausted at the end of the day and won’t have a hard time falling asleep by themselves.
The following blog post Smart Devices Can Mess Up A Kid’s Sleep Big Time was first published to The Snoring Mouthpiece Review Blog
source https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx/smart-devices-can-mess-up-a-kids-sleep-big-time
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