By: Sarah Bossio, Certified Pediatric Sleep Expert
This blog discusses the importance of sleep for children aged 0-8 years old and the effects of sleep deprivation. It highlights the scientific research on the benefits of sleep and the negative long-term effects of sleep deprivation, such as behavioral issues, emotional regulation problems, lower academic outcomes, and higher incidence of ADHD. I also address concerns about sleep training and its impact on attachment. Ultimately, I encourage parents to prioritize their children's sleep and offer resources for those who need support in improving their family's sleep habits.
Bottom line: sleep is just as important to our bodies as nutrition. Let's make it a goal to fill up our sleep tank. Keep on reading to learn how.
Sleep is so important.
It's such a passion of mine to advocate for children and their sleep needs while empowering parents to make sleep a priority for their families. When making decisions about how sleep fits into your lifestyle, its important to understand the effect sleep deprivation has on your kids ages 0 to 8 years old, and how we can avoid those negative effects. Also, sleep hygiene for parents is critical. Just because you are a parent does not mean your sleep needs to take a permanent back burner. You can prioritize sleep for your whole family!
Sleep for the Entire Family
I love to rely on science in my practice. Scientific research supports the benefits of sleep in children, the effects of sleep deprivation in children and the long-term effects, both positive and negative, of ensuring that your children have healthy sleep habits using some type of sleep training method. As a sleep consultant, I understand that sleep training is not for everyone. It is not a requirement of parenthood to sleep train your child. If your child is sleeping well, in a way that is sustainable for your family, they’re in a good mood, they’re developing well, and you’re happy, there is no need to sleep train.
However, what if you have that gut feeling that your kid isn’t sleeping well or could have more sleep or sleep is not optimal. If you're really struggling with their night wakings and crappy naps, then it's okay to listen to your instinct as a parent and decide to sleep. As you do your research on what ways will be most effective, the biggest question you might have is, are there any negative effects of sleep training what are the benefits of teaching sleep? We know they're going to cry and if you're going to walk through that, it has to be for good reason.
The Effects of Sleep Deprivation
Several academic, peer reviewed journal articles and scientific studies report that there are no negative effects on children when sleep training. But before talking about the specifics of the studies, I'd like to talk about the negative effects of sleep deprivation has on your children. Shame and guilt have no place here, as this is for informational purposes and to educate parents as they are making decisions regarding sleep. We make many choices as parents. Just as we can choose to give our kids a lollipop or apple slices for their snack, we can choose to prioritize sleep when we are informed of the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation affects every system in the body. Sleep runs on a circadian rhythm, which is our body's 24-hour biological clock. This clock also dictates our immune system, digestion, hormones, and cardiovascular system. When one of these systems is off kilter, it will affect other parts of the system. For example, if we are not sleeping well, our hormones will be out of balance. Children who experience chronic sleep deprivation have an excess of cortisol and adrenaline, their awake/stress hormones. While we do need cortisol and adrenaline in our bodies during our waking hours, when it is present in excess, the body can be negatively affected in both the short and long term.
Short Term Effects of Sleep Deprivation
There are some obvious short term effects when your baby, toddler, or preschooler isn't sleeping very well. Lack of sleep affect their mood. Even parents who report to have the happiest baby in the world, one who isn't sleeping well may have a very short fuse and quickly escalate from playful to fussy. Sleep deprivation affects their eating. So many families who I work with one-on-one report their children are fussy eaters in addition to being less-than-fantastic sleepers. Their hormones are on overdrive just trying to keep their body awake because they're so tired, therefore, they not able to have balanced hormones which release those digestive enzymes that run on the circadian rhythm. The body is going to overcompensate in other ways, which could manifest into a picky eat. Another common effect of broken sleep is your child presenting as though they are wired, totally awake, or labeled as "low sleep needs." . In actuality, this child is over-tired, which presents as wired. They're unable to settle down their body and get into a nice restful sleep because of the imbalance of hormones. Deep, NREM sleep cycles in long stretches are critical to hormone balance and if your children are not experiencing this due to short naps, late bedtimes, or night wakings, they just need more sleep.
Long Term Effects of Sleep Deprivation
One study that analyzed the long-term effects of sleep deprivation on children is titled "The Five-Year Follow-up of Harms and Benefits of Behavioral Infant Sleep Intervention, Randomized Trial", written by the lead researcher, Price. Please keep in mind this study is a journal-published, peer-reviewed sleep study that was conducted by legitimate, non-partisan research team. They followed 2 cohorts of children over the course of 5 years: group A included children who were sleep trained and group B included children who were not sleep trained. The study started when the participants were 6 months old and concluded around their 5th birthday. The group of children who never had any type of behavioral sleep intervention exhibited a higher incidence of behavioral issues, emotional regulation issues, lower academic outcomes, increased ADHD diagnosis, as well as reports from the parents that these were just "difficult children." Please keep in mind that the study states there is a correlation between poor sleep and these issues, not a causation. Other factors could play a roll.
However, when they studied the group of children who were sleep-trained at six months old, who did have some sort of behavioral sleep intervention, those children had lower incidences of ADHD diagnosis, emotional dysregulation, reports of behavior problems in school, and higher academic outcomes. The scientists concluded after their almost five-year-long study that sleep deprivation is linked to the increase in cortisol and adrenaline in the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. The reason these children were experiencing higher stress hormones was because they did not know how to self-soothe or sleep through the night on their own. They had an accumulated sleep debt, and this was affecting the way their brain was growing and developing. Therefore, a host of long-term negative effects were observed in this group of children.
Crying and Its Effect on Children
One of the biggest concerns parents have with sleep training is that their child will cry. They are concerned about feelings of abandonment and have fears of traumatizing their child. This study explains there are no effects on positive attachment for children whose parents have decided to teach them how to sleep independently. Keeping in mind that our children's primary form of communication before they have words, is to cry and toddlers have very big emotions and can protest frequently during their day. This is one form of communication. It's normal that when we're teaching them a new skill that our children will protest and since they're tired, we can expect that protest to increase during a time when everyone's patience is low.
Keep in mind, the crying and protest is very short-term, and quite frankly it will likely be no more or less than when they are crying because they are hungry, they've fallen off of the swing set, or if they want an iPad and you said no. This is something that your children are going to do frequently. Therefore, we can be reassured that there is no direct link between crying and attachment. Instead, we can rest assured that children often feel and exhibit more attachment when there are clear expectations and boundaries, which help them feel safe and secure.
When you are teaching your children to sleep, you will support them every step of the way in order to help them gain the skill. What happens in the body when we cry? Science tells us that our cortisol and adrenaline increases initially and then 15 to 20 minutes after we are done crying, the cortisol and adrenaline go back to previous levels, not baseline. Afterwards, the body releases of dopamine. Some scientists purport that some babies need to cry as a way to get their energy out and feel that dopamine surge in order to then feel relaxed enough to go to sleep.Please keep in mind that the increase in cortisol and adrenaline during crying is very short-lived. However, when your child is not sleeping well, the cortisol and adrenaline levels are increased without being reduced back to baseline levels. The only solution to balance these hormones is to get better sleep. If we continue to allow our children to experience sleep deprivation (up frequently throughout the middle of the night, going to bed late, waking up early, skipping our naps), those stress hormones will remain at elevated levels over a long period of time, which creates the negative effect.
It Is Okay to Sleep Train
Sleep training can seem so aversive to parents because of the crying, but it's not the crying that we need to worry about. Crying is a natural form of communication and you will be responding to those cries with support, love, and consistency. The most worrisome part of sleep deprivation is the long-term effect on their development. Sleep deprivation can increase negative behaviors, decrease academic outcomes and increase rates of ADHD. For these reasons, I make it no secret that I am passionate about supporting parents who choose to prioritize their children's sleep.
So if you have a gut feeling that you need to get sleep in order, but you're unsure of how to start, please know that there are ways to get help. Remember if your kids are sleep-deprived, so are you. Take the first step and book a discovery call with me to learn about my sleep programs and how I can create a personalized program to get your sleep on track..
Need Help with Deciding if Sleep Training is Right for You?
Let me know if you're struggling with this by leaving me a comment on my accompanying YouTube video. I'd love to interact with you and give you some help as you're navigating your sleep journey.
You can also subscribe to my Youtube channel, where I release the accompanying videos to these blog posts!
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I work with families one-on-one all the time who are experiencing issues with their babies' naps, overnight sleep, and more. If this sounds like you, please book a 15-minute sleep assessment call just so I can understand a little bit more about your child's sleep and then explain ways that I can work one-on-one with you to get it in order.
May your coffee be warm,
Sarah
Sarah is a Certified Pediatric Sleep Expert based in the NY/NJ Tri-State area and has helped over 500 families worldwide get their sleep back on track.
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