Children with bedtime routine sleep better

A new study revealed that having a regular bedtime routine is associated with better sleep in young children up to 6 years of age, and the positive impact on sleep increases with the consistency of the nightly routine.

The results of the study are published in the May issue of the journal Sleep.

The study found that children with a consistent bedtime routine had better sleep outcomes, including earlier bedtimes, shorter amount of time in bed before falling asleep, reduced night wakings, and increased sleep duration. Children with a bedtime routine every night slept for an average of more than an hour longer per night than children who never had a bedtime routine. Institution of a regular bedtime routine also was associated with decreased sleep problems and daytime behaviour problems, as perceived by mothers.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, positive bedtime routines involve the institution of a set sequence of pleasurable and calming activities preceding a child’s bedtime. The goal is to establish a behavioural chain leading up to sleep onset. Activities may include giving your child a soothing bath, brushing teeth and reading a bedtime story.

The study also found that the frequency of having a bedtime routine was associated with better sleep outcomes in a dose-dependent relationship.

“For each additional night that a family is able to institute a bedtime routine, and the younger that the routine is started, the better their child is likely to sleep,” said Jodi Mindell. “It’s like other healthy practices: Doing something just one day a week is good, doing it for three days a week is better, and doing it every day is best.”

Mothers participated in the study by completing a validated, online questionnaire that included specific questions about their child’s daytime and nighttime sleep patterns, bedtime routines and behavior. The questionnaire was translated into each language and back-translated to check for accuracy.

- See more at: http://blog.biowebspin.com/children-with-bedtime-routine-sleep-better/#sthash.yOcMqVzn.dpuf

Comments

Hootsuite - A modern Social Media Management Tool

Hootsuite is a social media management system for brand management created by Ryan Holmes in 2008. The system’s user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, TrendSpottr and Mixi. Additional integrations are available via Hootsuite’s App Directory, including Instagram, MailChimp, Reddit, Storify, Tumblr, Vimeo and YouTube. Based in Vancouver, Hootsuite has over 500 staff located in Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, London, Sydney, Singapore, and other countries. The company operates on a freemium model and has over 10 million users in more than 175 countries. The service is commonly used to manage online brands and to submit messages to a variety of social media services, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Mixi. Companies and organizations known to use Hootsuite include Facebook, PrintBindaas, the Obama administration, HBO, Martha Stewart Media, ...

The Secret to Getting the Postdoc You Want - By Martin Chalfie

I think that one of the scariest parts of being President of the Society for Developmental Biology is coming up with topics for these editorials in the Newsletter. This time, however, I want to write about an issue that has bothered me for many years: how people apply for postdoctoral positions. In my experience most people (around 99%) apply incorrectly for their postdocs, and I suspect that many people do not get the postdoc that they want because of their applications. I’d like to change that situation. So what do the 99% do that I feel is wrong? These applicants usually send a letter or email (either is fine) saying that they are interested in doing a postdoc and like the research done in the lab. Then they include their CV and the names of three references that can be contacted. Very little thought needs to be put into such applications, and they can be (and probably are) sent to tens if not hundreds of people. I am convinced that the usual reply to such letters is, “Sorry...

Gene turns female mosquitoes into males

Only females feast on human blood, transmitting not only yellow fever but also dengue and several other diseases. But what if you could turn all mosquitoes into males? That’s a possibility raised by new research that pinpoints the gene that determines whether a mosquito becomes male. To find the gene, scientists sequenced thousands of pieces of DNA from male and female mosquitoes belonging to two different strains of A. aegypti and look ed for stretches that were more common in males of both strains. They found 164 such sequences and matched them against data showing what genes are active in embryos, looking for sequences that seemed to be active in early male embryos. In the 24 sequences that remained, they found one new gene, which they named Nix. The scientists injected Nix into mosquito embryos and found more than two-thirds of the female mosquitoes developed male genitals and testes. When they removed Nix using a genome-editing method known as CRISPR-Cas9, male mosquitoes...

Mahantesh Biradar

Search This Blog