Sleep in children

The impact of poor sleep in the developing child is still tremendously underrated and virtually unexplored. The normative, age-appropriate sleep needs during development remain undefined to a large extent. Furthermore, it remains crucial to realize that relations between sleep duration and cognition, effect, and health are all multi-directional. The most consistent result of insufficient or disrupted sleep is increased daytime somnolence. Thorough sleep history-taking by the healthcare provider and the use of objective sleep assessments are potential first steps and should include the five sleep variables (bedtime, rise time, total sleep duration, variability of sleep over time, and alignment of sleep with other circadian factors). We need to explore the beneficial effects of healthy sleep and how disrupted, shortened, or insufficient sleep may adversely impact on our children’s cognitive and affective functioning, may compromise their health, and may therefore impose a heavy price on our socio-economic structure.