When children and adolescents get the right amount of sleep, it can benefit many life aspects such as attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and health across the lifespan. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) made specific recommendations in 2016 about infant, child, and adolescent sleep duration. Sleep range recommendations were largely based on research reviews, showing that children and adolescents are at greater risk for mental health problems, physical problems, and/or accident and injury when they sleep too little or too much. For instance, in a study of about 28,000 middle and high school students, only 3% of adolescents reported getting 9 hours of sleep. The less the students slept, the more likely they were to experience emotional distress and use substances such as tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and other illegal substances. Students who reported sleeping more than 10 hours per night regularly were at greater risk for suicidality.
Below are the sleep ranges recommended in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s consensus statement:
- infants 4 months to 12 months: 12 to 16 hours per day (including naps)
- children 1 to 2 years: 11 to 14 hours per day (including naps)
- children 3 to 5 years: 10 to 13 hours per day (including naps)
- children 6 to 12 years: 9 to 12 hours per day
- teenagers 13 to 18 years: 8 to 10 hours per day
Read the full story and other related sleep stories by Lynne Lamberg at Psychiatric News
See also this news post for guidelines on infant sleep from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine