The role of sleep in children’s development is incompletely understood. However, perceived inadequate or poor-quality sleep is associated with a number of emotional, behavioral, and health problems.
Remarkably, although the physiological requirement for sleep is undisputed, there is little consensus on how much sleep children actually need. Normal sleep patterns vary markedly by a child’s developmental stage, with six-month-old infants spending around 14 or more hours per day in sleep, preschoolers and school-age children sleeping 10-12 hours daily, and adolescents typically sleeping around eight hours. However, there seems to be a wide variation in individual sleep needs, even among children of the same age.
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