Not a Creature Was Stirring (Yeah. Right.)

Tis the season for friends, family and celebration... if you're an adult.

If you're a kid, it's more like the season of  uncomfortable holiday outfits, long car rides and seemingly endless family gatherings full of strange looking foods and even stranger looking people.

Compound these disruptions in routine with the decided lack of sleep that kids - much like the rest of us - experience around the holidays, it seems unfair to blame them for their inevitable meltdown, doesn't it?

The holidays are hard enough for kids. Ensuring children get the recommended amount of sleep year-round can go a long way toward ensuring a healthy, happy holiday for the whole family.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF)  recommends the following:

• 11-13 hours of sleep for preschoolers age 3-5
• 10-11 hours of sleep for 5 to 12 year olds
• 9 hours or more for teens

Here are some tips for helping your little ones get enough sleep:

• Make sure the room is quiet, dark, cool, and uncluttered.
  Bold colors and flashy décor might be a great fashion statement but you want a serene sanctuary.
• Remove all electronics from the room. 
  Electronic devices are designed to keep the brain engaged, making it more difficult to get to sleep at night. In addition, the light emitted from these devices limits the body’s release of melatonin, which helps us transition into our nighttime sleep cycle.
• Establish a nighttime reading routine.
  NSF has found that children who read as part of their bedtime routine are more likely to get healthy amounts of sleep.

Is Your Child Getting Enough Sleep?

What your kids do during the night has a huge impact on their daily lives.

Sleep plays a key role in mental, physical and emotional health, from infancy through teen years.

Now, experts at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have reviewed the research and arrived at a target slumber number for each age group.

Healthy Rest Offers Many Rewards

New guidelines published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine advise the following daily sleep totals:

• 4 to 12 months: 12 to 16 hours
  
• 1 to 2 years: 11 to 14 hours
  
• 3 to 5 years: 10 to 13 hours
  
• 6 to 12 years: 9 to 12 hours
  
• 13 to 18 years: 8 to 10 hours
  

“The right amount of sleep helps kids learn well, behave and feel happy,” says Lewis Milrod, M.D., director of Pediatric Sleep Medicine and a neurologist at K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

“Adequate rest also wards off health problems like high blood pressure, extra weight and heart issues.”

It's normal for kids to resist  bedtime. Help ease them into a healthy sleep routine by remembering the following guidelines.

• Modeling: Kids learn by watching you. Show them you value sleep and they’ll start to understand its importance.
• Routines: “Keep sleep, waking, naps and play around the same time every day,” advises Dr. Milrod. “And develop soothing night time rituals, such as reading.”
  
• Screen-Free Time: Ban phones, TVs and tablets from kids’ bedrooms.

"Make it a rule to shut them down at least 30 minutes before bedtime," Dr. Milrod says.

Health Experts: A shut-eye starved child is nothing to sleep on

A good night's sleep is as important to your child as a hearty breakfast. Without enough shut-eye, children are more likely to struggle with their school studies, do poorly on the playing field, and suffer depression.

According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), children are getting less than the recommended amount of sleep over a 24-hour period. This can make it tough for your child to solve problems and memorize lessons, which can lower grades and self-esteem.

Sleep-starved kids are also more easily frustrated and fidgety. A child's sleep trouble affects the whole family. Parents who are up coaxing a child to bed are robbed of their own valuable sleep.

The best cure is a consistent bedtime schedule. Stick to a bedtime that permits this amount of nightly sleep:

• 11 to 13 hours for a 3- to 5-year-old child. Preschoolers often have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. Children this age also are more likely to have nightmares and sleep terrors, and to sleepwalk.
  
• 10 to 11 hours for a school-aged child. Schoolchildren spend time with TV, computers, and the Internet, all of which can erode time for sleep. This age group also may be drinking caffeinated beverages that can affect the ease of falling asleep at night. Watching TV just before bedtime may make it more difficult to fall asleep and may create resistance or anxiety about bedtime. Too little sleep can lead to mood swings, and behavioral and cognitive problems.
  

If the current bedtime for your child is too late, move it 15 minutes earlier each night, until you reach the desired bedtime. Tuck resisters back into their own beds, promptly and repeatedly, until they get the message that you expect them to get to sleep on their own.

Sound Advice for Sound Sleep

• Unplug : Turn off TVs, computers, and cell phones. Better yet, keep such things out of the bedroom, which should be a stimulation-free zone.
  
• Wind down: Start the transition to sleep with dimmed lights and a warm bath; end with reading a book. Avoid watching TV just before bedtime.
  
• Decaffeinate: Drinking any caffeine during the day can affect sound sleep. Caffeine is found not just in coffee and cola, but also in tea and chocolate.
  
• Decompress: Overbooked kids who rush from band practice to dance class to dinner to homework may be too keyed up at bedtime to unwind. Experts recommend one activity per season.
  
• Get help: If, despite these measures, your child still resists bedtime, has nighttime awakenings, or snores, talk with your doctor.

The sleep experts at Hackensack Meridian Health K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital can help determine if your child has a sleep disorder, or another type of neurological condition. Hackensack Meridian Health K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital offers the region's first pediatric sleep program, backed by research and dedication from our physicians and nurses. Learn more here.