Guidelines for Sleeping at all ages

How Much Sleep Do Children Need?

The amount of sleep a child needs varies depending on the individual and certain factors, including the age of the child. Following are some general guidelines:

1-4 Weeks Old: 15 - 16 hours per day

Newborns typically sleep about 15 to 18 hours a day, but only in short periods of two to four hours. Premature babies may sleep longer andcolicky ones shorter.

Since newborns do not yet have an internal biological clock, or circadian rhythm, their sleep patterns are not related to the daylight and nighttime cycles. In fact, they tend not to have much of a pattern at all.

1-4 Months Old: 14 - 15 hours per day

By 6 weeks of age your baby is beginning to settle down a bit, and you may notice more regular sleep patterns emerging. The longest periods of sleep run four to six hours and now tends to occur more regularly in the evening. Day-night confusion ends.

4-12 Months Old: 14 - 15 hours per day

While up to 15 hours is ideal, most infants up to 11 months old get only about 12 hours sleep. Establishing healthy sleep habits is a primary goal during this period, as your baby is now much more social, and his sleep patterns are more adult-like.

Babies typically have three naps and drop to two at around 6 months old, at which time (or earlier) they are physically capable of sleeping through the night. Establishing regular naps generally happens at the latter part of this time frame, as his biological rhythms mature. The midmorning nap usually starts at 9 a.m. and lasts about an hour. The early afternoon nap starts from 12 to 2 p.m. and lasts an hour or two. And the late afternoon nap may start from 3 to 5 p.m. and is variable in duration.

1-3 Years Old: 12 - 14 hours per day

As your child moves past the first year toward 18-21 months of age he will likely lose his morning nap and nap only once a day. While toddlers need up to 14 hours a day of sleep, they typically get only about 10.

Most children from about 21 to 36 months of age still need one nap a day, which may range from one to three and a half hours long. They typically go to bed between 7 and 9 p.m. and wake up between 6 and 8 a.m.

3-6 Years Old: 10 - 12 hours per day

Children at this age typically go to bed between 7 and 9 p.m. and wake up around 6 and 8 a.m., just as they did when they were younger. At 3, most children are still napping while at 5, most are not. Naps gradually become shorter as well. New sleep problems do not usually develop after 3 years of age.

7-12 Years Old: 10 - 11 hours per day

At these ages, with social, school, and family activities, bedtimes gradually become later and later, with most 12-years-olds going to bed at about 9 p.m. There is still a wide range of bedtimes, from 7:30 to 10 p.m., as well as total sleep times, from 9 to 12 hours, although the average is only about 9 hours.

12-18 Years Old: 8 - 9 hours per day

Sleep needs remain just as vital to health and well-being for teenagers as when they were younger. It turns out that many teenagers actually may need more sleep than in previous years. Now, however, social pressures conspire against getting the proper amount and quality of sleep.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children

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Sleep-deprived? You may need less as you age

Many do well even without 8 hours of shut-eye a night, study finds

by Robert Roy Britt
updated 2/1/2010 9:30:20 AM ET

How much sleep we need is largely a mystery, and sleep seems tougher to come by as we age. Many studies — often funded by the pharmaceutical industry — have suggested that we're all sleep-deprived zombies, risking our health for lack of shut-eye.

But new research in the U.K. confirms previous indications that older people need less sleep. It also suggests that variations in sleep hours needed are normal and healthy — so long as one is not overly sleepy during the day.

"Healthy aging appears to be associated with reductions in the sleep duration and depth required to maintain daytime alertness," the scientists said in a statement.

Still, researchers warn that many people in modern society suffer from sleep deprivation, and that it can lead to plenty of woes from accidents on the job to higher risk of falls and even death in elderly people.

The study, announced today, involved 110 healthy adults who did not have any sleep disorders and didn't complain about lack of sleep. They went through various rounds of sleep and wake periods under varying conditions, and were tested for sleepiness during the wake periods.

During the first night with eight hours in bed, the resulting average sleep time, by age group:

• Age 20-30: 433.5 minutes (7.23 hours) 
• Age 40-55: 409.9 minutes (6.83 hours) 
• Age 66-83: 390.4 minutes (6.51 hours)

The researchers do not suggest that these times, achieved during lab conditions much different from real life, are normal. But the comparison between groups is what's interesting, with the oldest group snoozing about 20 minutes less than the middle-agers, who in turn slept about 23 minutes less than the youngest group. The amount of time spent in deep sleep, measured as "slow-wave sleep," was also less in the older groups.

Video: Video: How do you know if you get enough sleep? Daytime sleepiness was measured by asking the subjects to nap, which count in tallying your overall sleep, said study leader Derk-Jan Dijk, professor of sleep and physiology at the University of Surrey in the U.K. (Previous research has shown that naps are good for you.)

"But, we need to be careful; naps very late in the day may make you feel better for the remainder of the waking day but also disrupt your subsequent night time sleep episode," Dijk told LiveScience.

When participants were asked to lie in bed and try to nap, here's how long it took on average for the members of each group to dose off:

• Age 20-30: 8.7 minutes 
• Age 40-55: 11.7 minutes 
• Age 66-83: 14.2 minutes

However, the researchers note in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Sleep that if you're sleepy during the day, then you probably need more sleep.

"Our findings reaffirm the theory that it is not normal for older people to be sleepy during the daytime," Dijk said. "Whether you are young or old, if you are sleepy during the day you either don't get enough sleep or you may suffer from a sleep disorder."

Scientists admit that the role of sleep is not well understood and that they aren't sure how much sleep each person needs. A study last year indicated that some people are genetically programmed to need less sleep.

Video: Simple steps to better sleep Dijk also helped with a 2008 study reported in the journal Current Biology, in which participants stayed in bed for 16 hours in the dark each day for several days, to see how much they would sleep. Younger people slept an average of 9 hours while older people got 7.5 hours.

"The most parsimonious explanation for our results is that older people need less sleep," said Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women's Hospital & Harvard Medical School. "It's also possible that they sleep less even when given the opportunity for more sleep because of age-related changes in the ability to fall asleep and remain asleep."

Again in that 2008 study, however, Dijk and Klerman found that most healthy people, and young people in particular, don't get as much sleep as they need.

If you chronically feel sleepy during the day, Dijk advises you see a doctor. But if you get just six or seven hours of snooze time and feel fine, "then that is OK," he said. But if you think you're okay and find yourself dozing during meetings or nodding off while watching TV, "there still may be a problem."

© 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35180414/ns/health-aging/t/sleep-deprived-you-may-need-less-you-age/#