Discover The Surprising Benefits Of Naps For Your Child's Well-being And Cognitive Development!

Sleep plays a vital role in the development of your child. Napping, in particular, is very important for children between 2 and 5 years of age. When your child doesn't get enough sleep or naptime, their physical and emotional growth is hampered. Ultimately, this leads to cellular damage because the cells do not get the time required for repair.

Benefits of napping

• Promotes growth: Growth hormones secreted when kids sleep are essential for natural growth.
• Reduces stress hormones: Production of stress hormones, which are harmful to the heart, is reduced when the child has regular naps.
• Reduces chances of obesity: Regular naps decrease the chances of obesity in children. Naps regulate hormone secretion that controls food intake and prevents weight gain.
• Helps prevent infections: Naptime boosts immunity in children - it fights germs and prevents infections.
• Increases attention: After a good sleep, kids can concentrate and focus better
• Improves emotional health: Kids who regularly follow a proper nap schedule have better emotional health, which has a positive impact on their development.

Prescribed amount of sleep for children

Naptime differs according to the child's age. Ideally, sleep time range for 2- to 3-year-old children is 10-14 hours. Kids between 3 and 5 years should sleep for 10 hours a day.

Effects of irregular naptime on health

When children follow an irregular nap time, they have decreased energy levels, which results in low productivity. The child will feel irritated all the time, which also has an impact on their emotional behaviour. This leads to irregular eating habits where the child might eat a lot or not eat enough. According to The Sleep Lady, some negative consequences of sleep deprivation on children include:

• Difficulty in waking up in the morning
• Hyperactivity
• Increased appetite
• Accident-prone
• Temper tantrums

Lack of naptime can have a negative impact on a child's mental health. This leads to attention deficiency, which will impact their studies. Inadequate naptime is also linked to a child's diet. Children who do not nap enough or get enough sleep tend to eat more, which can lead to obesity.

What you can do to make your child sleep in the afternoon

The most common reason some children cannot sleep in the afternoon is due to distraction. This is more evident in joint families where children are unable to sleep as they get distracted by other children in the family.

However, in nuclear families, this cannot be the case, and parents have no difficulty in putting their children to sleep. If your kid cannot sleep in the afternoon, resort to the following measures.

1) Follow a typical routine: Make your child follow a definite and fixed routine for sleeping and eating. Following the schedule every day will induce sleep at the right time.

2) Physical activity: Encourage regular physical activity in children so that they get tired and sleep at the scheduled time.

Tips to get your child to sleep and follow a regular naptime:

• Follow a fixed sleep schedule for your baby.
• Ensure the room is dark when the child is about to sleep because too much light prevents sleep. Also, the bedroom should have dim lights so that the child feels secure and can be put to sleep easily.
• Keep the room's temperature optimum for the child to sleep well.
• The child's room should be devoid of distractions like television, mobile phones, or other gadgets.

Parents should make optimum sleep a priority. Follow the mantra 'Early to bed, early to rise' from the early years.

With inputs from Dr Sundar C Ingaleshwar, Consultant Paediatrician, Columbia Asia Referral Hospital, Bengaluru.