Giving children a consistent bedtime may be more important than sleep quality or duration in setting long-term behaviour traits.
A study by the Penn State College of Health and Human Development and Penn State College of Medicine showed children with a consistent bedtime were best able to regulate their emotions.
The study analysed sleep and behaviour data from 143 six-year-old children as part of the Penn State Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) research project.
It showed that the more a child’s bedtime varied each night, the worse they regulated their behaviour and emotions.
A child whose bedtime varied by 20 minutes a night over the week of the study typically displayed more self-regulation than a child whose bedtime varied by two hours across the week.
Study lead Orfeu Buxton described the findings as “amazing”.
“When parents establish clear structures and respond to their child’s needs appropriately, children have better outcomes in weight regulation and behaviour – even years later,” Professor Buxton said.
“Every parent can establish clear standards and routines for their children. We now have eight years of research…demonstrating that when parents are responsive to their children, they raise healthier children.”
Children in the study wore a monitor on their wrist for seven days to measure their nighttime sleep and activity.
The devices monitored multiple aspects of sleep – time the child fell asleep, time the child woke in the morning, the midpoint of sleep timing, how efficiently the child remained asleep and the total amount of sleep the child got each night.
The research report said the results clearly indicated that sleep regularity was important for prosocial and age-appropriate behaviour in children.
The full report is on the Penn State website.
