To determine how much sleep children and teens need to promote optimal health and avoid potential health issues, a panel of 13 experts at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reviewed more than 864 articles in 2016 on sleep and health in children and adolescents. They came to a consensus that for every 24 hours, children ages 6- 12 years old should sleep 9-12 hours, and teens ages 13 - 18 years old should sleep 8- 10 hours. Therefore, fewer than nine hours in children or eight hours in teens is considered inadequate.

The latest research by the CDC found that almost 60% of middle school-aged kids and a colossal 73% of high school-aged kids are not getting enough sleep. What is more disturbing is that an incredible 23% of middle schoolers and 43% of high schoolers are getting LESS THAN 6 hours of sleep per night! This doesn’t even tell us whether the little sleep they are getting is quality sleep. When we consider this data, is it really any wonder that we have an epidemic of childhood obesity, diabetes, and ADHD?

In teens, short sleep duration is also associated with increased risky behaviors such as:

• Abuse of drugs and alcohol: in a nationwide study of U.S. adolescents, getting seven or fewer hours of sleep was associated with increased use of drugs and alcohol.
• Motor vehicle crashes: one study found that later school start times were associated with increased sleep and fewer car crashes among teens.
• Suicide attempts: sleeping fewer than eight hours a night is associated with a threefold increased risk of suicidal attempts

The functional medicine approach seeks to determine the causes of poor sleep in the first place. While some kids may have more complex causes of underlying sleep abnormalities, in my experience, most sleep difficulties in children can be addressed by making a few simple lifestyle changes. Try these tips in your home to improve your child’s sleep:

• Get them outside during the day: Like adults, children need exposure to bright blue light during the day to help entrain their circadian rhythms. If they attend school during the day, make sure they are getting exposure to sunlight before or after school, or ideally at lunchtime, when the sun is highest.
• Reduce bright light in your house in the evening: Even if you can’t convince your kids to wear the hip blue-blocking glasses, you can reduce the amount of blue light they are exposed to in the evening hours. Try lighting some red-bulb lamps or beeswax candles at night instead of harsh white lights.
• Eat dinner earlier in the evening: Kids may find it difficult to fall asleep with a stomach full of food after a late dinner. Try to eat dinner earlier if possible to allow time to digest, and discourage large late-night snacks.
• Set bedtimes for your children: Parent-set bedtimes have been associated with improved sleep duration and better daytime functioning in teens. If your child isn’t sleepy, encourage them to at least get in bed and read or journal by red or orange light. Children thrive on routines, so having a pattern of low-key activities that repeat every night can help them relax and start to feel sleepy.
• Make the bedroom a device-free sleep sanctuary: Make a house rule that there are no devices allowed in the bedroom at nighttime and set a “media curfew” elsewhere in the house (i.e., no devices after a certain time). Evening technology use is associated with poor-quality sleep and shorter sleep duration among youth. If teens must use devices to complete homework in the evenings, be sure that they have blue-blocking applications like F.lux set up on their computers and/or that they wear blue-blocking glasses. Make the bedroom a dark, cool, and quiet place.
• Limit caffeine: The abuse of caffeine in teens is highly concerning. Children and adolescents are one of the fastest-growing populations of caffeine users, with an estimated 70% increase in the number of teens using caffeine in the past 30 years. There is no evidence for a benefit of caffeine in children and adolescents, and at least one animal study suggests that it could interfere with sleep and brain maturation.
• Explain why: Helping kids to understand why healthy sleep practices are important and the association between sleep and their health can reduce their resistance to new practices. It also makes them more likely to continue these practices as they become independent. Children are more impacted by sleep deprivation than adults. Help the kids get the sleep they need and help them to learn better sleep habits. The BEST way to do this is to lead by example. If not for yourself, do it for them.

Remember, as a parent, ensuring that your child gets adequate sleep is one of the most important things you can do to set them up for success and health in the future.