Is your child getting enough sleep?

Trouble started when Dele Haruna insisted that his one-year-old Dammy will not start school or crèche until she is at least two years of age. Sola, the mother, had gone to enrol Dammy in a crèche because other mothers had said it will help Dammy grow up faster.

Mr Haruna, a school teacher, had insisted that allowing Dammy start crèche or any form of schooling early will deprive him the opportunity of bonding, and expose him to the unnecessary stress of having to wake up early and return home late.

Mrs Alima Kareem, a mother of three and a nurse, recounting her experience when her children were still in elementary school  said, “the routine for them is to come back from school and after a brief rest do their school assignment and by 9 pm listen to the network news before going to bed.”

The three boys, all university graduates now, she claimed had no problem passing their final secondary school examination because adequate sleeping time and exercises were built into their daily routine.

Experts say that sleep plays a critical role in immune function, metabolism, memory, learning, as well as other vital functions in human life.

Although some of the functions and benefits derivable from good sleep may have deep evolutionary roots, its potential role in memory boost and healthy living is particularly relevant to the 21st century, where the line between work, personal life and other demanding responsibilities is often blurred.

Paradoxically, many children between the ages of one and 12 years increasingly miss their sleep. A Nigerian sleep study found that children, in fact, slept less and had more sleep problems than children in other countries.

In a new study, researchers at the Lagos State University College of Medicine found that night sleep duration had decreased significantly from 9.6 hours to 8.7 hours within the age range.

They studied sleep patterns, sleep problems and associated socio-demographic factors among 432 children aged between one and 12 years at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.

The researchers, which included Drs Senbanjo Idowu O; Salisu MA; Oshikoya KA; Adediji UO and Akinola AO, found no significant gender difference in bedtimes, rise times and night sleep duration. About 70 per cent napped during the day and 26 per cent of these did so regularly.

The most common sleep problems were bedwetting (42 per cent), afraid of sleeping alone (38 per cent), snoring (28 per cent) and sleep talking (24 per cent), the 2018 study, published in the journal, Acta Paediatrics also found.

The researchers said that in comparisons with other studies, most of the children that participated in the study had shorter sleep duration than their peers in other countries and regions and a higher prevalence of sleep disorders.

“Now, inadequate sleep is a problem in children because they are now faced with a lot of distractions from social media, television, games and so on. Most are not meeting their average sleep requirements,” said Professor Chinyere Ezeaka, the President, Nigerian Society of Neonatal Medicine (NISOM).

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Unfortunately, such a loss of sleep, Professor Ezeaka added affects the children the next day because they will not function optimally and maximally.

Chairman, Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, Dr Oladoyin Odubanjo linked sleep-deprivation Nigerian children to problems of modernisation and population explosion in major cities like Lagos.

Odubanjo, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Academy of Science, stated that traffic congestion in major cities now force parents, including their children, to leave their houses as early as 5 am to ensure they resume on time to work and school respectively.

Due to the break down in the fabric of the society, including fear of kidnapping and molestation, he said most children even after school are not allowed to come home alone straight from school in other that they could relax and take a nap if they so wish.

Moreover, Professor Olanrewaju Adedoyin, a consultant paediatrician, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, said the duration of sleep in Nigerian children is subject to such factors as where the child resides, his parent’s socio-economic status and amount of school assignments he has to do.

Professor Adedoyin adding, “you cannot compare the child who leaves in Lagos with another who lives in Ibadan, Ilorin or any of the northern cities. The child who lives in Lagos will have to be woken up say about 4 am so that he can get to school in good time, depending on their residency.”

According to him, “nature has a way of compensating for all that. And so when he gets to school, he will tend to sleep off during classes. This will affect the ability of the child to grasp what is been taught.”

He declared that every child needs at least eight hours of sound sleep, stating that children deprived of adequate sleep stand a chance of developing sleep disorders like nightmares, sleepwalking and bed-wetting.

Where the child has other medical conditions, he said lack of adequate sleep may further worsen their health condition.

Nonetheless, Dr Champion Seun-Fadipe, a consultant psychiatrist, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun State said the sleep duration of people generally depends on their age.

According to him, newborns need between 16 and 18 hours; children in early school age often need between 11 and 12 hours of sleep a day; while adults need about eight hours of sleep.

He added that where children in early school age sleep for less than 11 and 12 hours of sleep a day, over time, sleep debt can accumulate.

Dr Seun-Fadipe declared, “For children, who are just developing, whose brains are just developing, inadequate sleep portends more danger for them than even for adults.

“When you sleep, your body refreshes.  During sleep, the different cells of the body are also revitalised because healing processes are going on.

“Growth hormones also increase during sleep. That is why most especially babies sleep for 16 to 18 hours. The only thing they do is eat and grow. When they sleep, they are actually growing. The more they sleep, the better it is for them.”

However, Dr Seun-Fadipe declared that even when parents allow for mid-day naps for children in school ages, sometimes, the hours of sleep for each day is still lower.

He warned that whatever will shorten the length of sleep in children such as watching of cartoons, are best guided against because poor sleep in children could portend danger on their physical, psychological, mental and social well-being.

No doubt, children may not be able to judge their own sleepiness. But Dr Seun-Fadipe emphasised on ensuring that children maintain good sleep hygiene to ensure they can have a good quality sleep at all times.

Researchers in the journal, Academic Paediatrics, had warned that children ages three to seven who do not get enough sleep are more likely to have problems with attention, emotional control, and peer relationships in mid-childhood.

Less sleep, especially before the age of 41 months, has also recently been found to increase hyperactivity-impulsivity and to lower cognitive performance on neurodevelopmental tests.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said that short sleep duration may also contribute to the development of obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

According to them, for each additional hour of sleep, the risk of a child becoming overweight or obese was lowered on average by nine per cent.