Survey reveals secret to child sleep

Experts from Monash University in Melbourne and the University of Auckland looked at 519 seven-year-olds in an attempt to confirm what many parents have always believed to be true - that running around during the day means that the child will fall asleep faster. But the study also found that for every hour a child spends sitting still, it takes them three more minutes to fall asleep at night. What they did during this time didn’t matter, they could be watching television or reading and it wouldn’t affect the results. While children who were physically active during the day took less time to fall asleep, the biggest association was between how sedentary the child was and the increased time needed to fall asleep. Another correlation was that those who fell asleep faster stayed asleep for longer periods of time than those who took a longer time getting to sleep. The researchers didn’t find any changes that could be attributed to bad behavior or for children who went to sleep later, after 9 PM or so.

Read the full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8163920.stm