Are your children getting enough sleep? If they're anything like the majority of American kids, the answer is no. In the past, children used to get at least one more hour of sleep than they get now. So what's keeping our children from getting enough rest? According to a new study, the culprit seems to be their pre-bedtime activities.
What do your children do an hour before lights-out? My children are little, so we still have a pretty set bedtime routine. Dinner, bathtime, and reading just before they go to sleep. But this didn't seem to be the case for the majority of the children in the study, which was published this week in the journal Pediatrics.
Researchers found that the major reason why kids don't get enough sleep is because they stay up watching TV. This, in turn, makes it much more difficult for them to fall asleep because their brains are too stimulated.
Read more in ¿Qué más?: Scientists: Kids have never gotten enough sleep
The only time I allow my kids to watch TV right before they go to sleep is on Fridays when we have our weekly pizza and movie night. Usually this means they end up going to bed later than their regular bedtime and I have noticed that even though they're tired, it does take them a while longer to fall asleep. And that's because the study found that the longer kids spend in front of the screen, the longer it takes them to doze off.
Although I still have control over how much TV time my kids get, I can only imagine hard things will get when they get a bit older considering we already live our lives surrounded by and dependant on electronics.
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