Poor sleep linked to problems in young diabetics

A new study suggests that young diabetics may be struggling to get a good night’s sleep. As a result, they have worse control of their blood sugar, poorer school performance and behavioral problems.

The study tracked the sleep health of 50 Type 1 diabetics, ages 10 to 16. Researchers then compared the data with a similar control group. They found that the young diabetics spent more time sleeping in a lighter sleep than youth without diabetes. This lighter sleep was linked to compromised school performance and higher blood sugar levels.

Research shows that a good night’s sleep helps with glucose maintenance and insulin sensitivity. However, most of this research has been with adults. The new study concluded that sleep assessment should be routine in managing young people’s Type 1 diabetes. The study appears in the January issue of the journal SLEEP.

Read more about children’s sleep needs from the experts. Or find additional stories about children and sleep on the Sleep Education Blog.

Book Review: The Animals Sleep

The Sleep Education blog invited Beth Smith to review The Animals Sleep: A Bedtime Book of Biomes, a children’s picture book published in 2011 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Now in her sixth year of teaching, Beth teaches first-grade students at St. Paul Catholic School in Valparaiso, Ind. She received a bachelor of science in elementary education from Valparaiso University.

Thomas Heffron has creatively written a story, The Animals Sleep: A Bedtime Book of Biomes, geared toward younger students. Through reading it in a classroom setting, children are able to make cross-curriculum connections in both reading and science.

Students are first introduced to the scientific fact that both humans and animals need sleep. They are then transported from a warm, cozy bedroom into various biomes of multiple animals. The vivid and colorful images created by Lina Safar allow children to visualize the environments in which different animals live.

They will identify familiar animals like a zebra, cow and snake. Connections will be made to which animals live in each biome. Students will also comprehend the physical aspects of each biome.


The pictures match the written, descriptive quality of the book, presenting the children with a great and deeper understanding of the biomes and how each animal sleeps. The rhyme and rhythm presented on each page allow for an exciting and smooth read.

At the conclusion of the book, the children are moved out of the pond, grasslands and desert, and they are placed into their bedroom, a familiar place of sleep. This allows them to comprehend the importance of sleep in their lives just as it is important to the animals.

Children will thoroughly enjoy this story and be drawn into the world of the animals and sleep!

The Animals Sleep: A Bedtime Book of Biomes can be purchased from Amazon or directly from the AASM. Also available from the AASM is I See the Animals Sleeping: A Bedtime Story. Learn more about these books and find other educational resources at SleepEducation.com.

Book Review: I See the Animals Sleeping

The Sleep Education blog invited Vicki Rakowski to review I see the Animals Sleeping: A Bedtime Story, a children’s picture book published in 2011 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Vicki is assistant director of youth services for the Lisle Library District in Lisle, IL.

How does a lion sleep? A red fox? How about an elephant? With this new title from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, young readers will learn exactly how their favorite animals go about getting their rest.

The information is delivered simply – charmingly illustrated scenes of sleeping animals and their habitats juxtaposed with a four-line rhyme and a fact box. From flamingoes to platypuses, the scenes are elegantly done, but never overly arty -- it’s impossible not to smile at illustrator Roberta Baird’s rendition of a dozing sea otter.

The “Sleep Fact!” boxes offer lots of points for discussion -- the differences in the ways many animals prefer to sleep, as well as their ideal habitats, and wonderful details about the animals themselves, but this information is never overwhelming.

While the majority of the rhymes are pitch-perfect for both the audience and the subject matter, readers may find themselves stumbling here and there over a few forced lines. This book, however, offers solid, engaging nonfiction for toddlers and preschoolers about one of their favorite subjects: the animal kingdom.

This makes a great addition to any children’s collection, and will be a terrific support to early childhood educators in their lesson plans and circle time. Recommended for toddlers and preschoolers.

I See the Animals Sleeping: A Bedtime Story can be purchased from Amazon or directly from the AASM. Also available from the AASM is The Animals Sleep: A Bedtime Book of Biomes. Learn more about these books and find other educational resources at SleepEducation.com.

Evening Screen Time Negatively Affects Kids' Sleep

Many young children have a problem going to sleep when it is their bed time. A recent study in the journal Pediatrics found that children between the ages of 3 and 5 had trouble sleeping if they had screen time after 7 p.m. Screen time includes television, video games or the computer. The amount of violent content in the program or game appears to be a contributing factor.

According to the study, about 20 percent of the 112 children involved had sleep problems almost every day of the week. Their issues included difficulty falling asleep, waking up during the night, nightmares and being sleepy during the day. The children who watched violent television at night had the most sleep problems.

A hundred children averaged a half hour of nighttime television, and 28 percent of the group had difficulty sleeping. When it came to violent television, 60 of the children averaged about an hour daily. About 37 percent had trouble sleeping. Television is often a stimulant to small children. Evening viewing may lead to increased alertness, and prevent them from winding down for bedtime. The findings demonstrate the importance that parents monitor the amount of television young children watch so they meet their sleep needs.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Dr. Marc Weissbluth a sleep disorders specialist at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, said children get ready for sleep with nighttime rituals that communicate that it is time for rest. Many families mistakenly believe that watching television helps their children go sleep, so they put televisions in their children’s room. Weissbluth suggests bedtime stories or cuddling with parents as healthier alternatives to television.

The findings are consistent with another study on bedtime routines published in the May 2009 issue of SLEEP. The study found that a healthy bedtime routine improves the sleep of infants and toddlers.

Image by Sean Dreilinger

Online Toolset Helps Young Children and Their Parents Find Sleep

Sleep-deprived new parents may want to put down the baby books and turn to the internet for help. A new study in the April issue of the journal SLEEP shows internet-based interventions work wonders reducing infant and toddler sleep disturbances.

Mothers in the study used Johnson & Johnson’s Customized Sleep Profile, an online program that compares a child’s sleep to other children of the same age. Parents enter details about the child’s sleep habits, such as position, sleep environment and bedtime routine and times awoken per night.

The program uses an algorithm to generate a summary of the child’s sleep habits and generates customized recommendations. A child can be an “excellent, good or disrupted sleeper.”

A group of 264 mothers were randomly assigned to an internet intervention group or a control group. Following an internet intervention, parents reported a 50 percent or more decrease in the number and duration of night wakings. Children took less time to fall asleep and had a longer total sleep time at night. As a result, the mothers slept better and had notable improvements in levels of tension, depression, fatigue and confusion.

Johnson & Johnson’s Customized Sleep Profile seems to be an effective place to start if your child is a disturbed sleeper. The algorithm gives at least some useful advice that benefited the mothers in the study.

Similar internet interventions are available from other online sources. It’s too early to know that the other programs work, because the study only examined the effectiveness of Johnson & Johnson’s Customized Sleep Profile.

Sleep problems are common among young children – as many as 30 percent of infants and toddlers have disrupted sleep. Young children have a form of sleep apnea, which would require treatment. If you believe your child’s sleep problems may be serious, skip the internet intervention and see your family pediatrician instead.

Read more about Sleep & Young Children.

ADHD and Late Bedtimes Don't Mix for Schoolchildren

Late bedtimes and overall poor sleeping habits can easily transform an A into an F for school-aged children. Sleep is perhaps the most important factor in academic success and healthy cognitive development. Lack of sleep can be disastrous for children, especially if they have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

A study in the March issue of the journal SLEEP reports the consequences from poor sleep can magnify the academic disadvantage facing children with ADHD. After staying up late for nearly an extra hour, children with ADHD lost the ability to remain vigilant and attentive.

A group of 11 children with ADHD and 32 kids without the childhood disorder were asked to eliminate nearly an hour of sleep for six consecutive nights, following a baseline period. Researchers monitored the children’s sleep patterns using wrist actigraphy.

Before and after the period of sleep-deprivation, each child took a common neurobehavioral test used in the evaluation of ADHD called a Continuous Performance Test. The children were presented single letters on a computer screen at three different rates and had to press a button in response.

Results show that children with ADHD who lost an average of 55 minutes of sleep per night had more errors and a slower reaction time in the test compared to children without the disorder.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that ADHD affects about 3-5% of school-aged children, and is more common in boys than girls. Children with ADHD may be impatient, have trouble focusing and quickly become bored. They may daydream, have trouble sitting still or talk nonstop. For a child to be clinically diagnosed with ADHD, these symptoms must be present for at least six months. Sometimes mood disorders such as depression or other learning disabilities are mistaken for ADHD.

Lack of sleep can also lead to symptoms similar to ADHD in children. They respond to sleep loss differently than adults. Sleep-deprived adults may feel lethargic and have trouble staying awake, while sleep-deprived children can be hyperactive.

The AASM recommends school-aged children get 9-10 hours of sleep per night. Very young children may need as much as 14 hours of sleep for healthy cognitive development.

Nighttime Sleep Essential for Mental Development in Young Children

Good nighttime sleep at a very early age may help kick-start cognitive development and give kids a leg-up in school. The amount of nighttime sleep – not daytime naps – is the key component to advanced executive function in children, a study included in the November/December issue of Child Development reports.

Executive function is another name for a specific group of mental skill areas essential for success in the classroom. Skills include attentiveness, self-discipline, organization, memorization and the abilities to plan, think and work with others. Executive function develops rapidly across the first six years of life. Little is known about why some children are more successful at developing those skills than their peers.

The study followed 60 Canadian children between their 12 and 26 months of age. At the 12 and 18 month mark, each parent completed sleep diaries by recording when their child slept and for what length. Researchers tested the children’s executive function at 18 and 26 months of age.

Results show children who slept mostly at night did better at most executive function-related tests, especially the tasks involving impulse control. The number of times the children woke per night did not impact test results. The findings held true even after the authors adjusted for factors such as socio-economic class, parents’ education level and children’s general cognitive skills.

The authors of the study note that infant sleep later sets in motion the development of more advanced executive skills. This may help flesh out recent findings that linked earlier bedtimes to higher test scores in school-aged children.

The AASM recommends infants get a minimum of 14 hours of sleep per day for healthy development. Toddlers should sleep 12 to 14 hours per night. Start your child’s health habits out on the right foot and make their sleep a priority.

Photo by doriana_s