Night sleep of 10 or more hours eases children's transition to kindergarten: AAP

USA: Children who have regular, 10-plus hours of sleep per night, make the transition to Kindergarten more successfully than children with irregular sleeping patterns, reports an article published in the Pediatrics

The kindergarten (K) year plays an important role in establishing competencies critical to children's success and achievement in school. Transitioning to kindergarten can be a scary time for many young children. Children's adjustment to K has multiple determinants, with contributions from socioeconomic status, child health, attendance history, and other factors. Curiously, one determinant largely missing in studies of K transition is children's sleep duration.

Sleep and children's functioning have been linked to school success among older children, although most previous work is cross-sectional. Little is known of longitudinal linkages between sleep duration and children's adjustment when transitioning to kindergarten and across the school year

Douglas M, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, PA, USA, and colleagues conducted a study to examine longitudinal linkages between child sleep duration and children's socioemotional, learning engagement, executive functioning, and academic outcomes across the full kindergarten (K) year.

Investigators employed a measurement-burst design to examine 3 different measures of child sleep duration in 7-day bursts at pre-K, early K, mid-K and late K, using wrist actigraphy. The measures included: the mean amounts of child sleep per 24-hour period across the full week; the proportion of 24-hour periods per week that children slept 10 or more hours; and the proportion of nighttime sleep periods per week that children slept 10 or more hours. Children's outcomes at early, mid-, and late K were obtained from their K teachers blind to children's sleep histories, and assessments administered by project staff.

Key findings of the study,

• Regularity of nighttime sleep in which children slept 10 or more hours per night, especially at pre-K, consistently predicted more favorable K outcomes in socioemotional, learning engagement, and academic domains.

• Healthy nighttime sleep habits before K started were especially promotive of better K adjustment across the full K year.

Investigators conclude that to promote a favorable transition to first-time schooling, particular attention should be paid to sleep hygiene and regularity of 10-plus hours of nightly child sleep established before the start of K. Good sleep hygiene (eg, organized bedtime routines, limited screen access, and bedtimes before 9 PM) may be as critical for the well-being of children as it is for adults.

The authors further propose that such interventions target parental, as well as child, sleep because sleep between parents and children (eg, bedtimes, sleep onset, and morning wake-ups) are closely aligned. Such interventions may need to be adapted flexibly, especially when parents have irregular, nonstandard work hours.

Reference:

Douglas M. Teti, Corey J. Whitesell, Jacqueline A. Mogle, Brian Crosby, Orfeu M. Buxton, Karen L. Bierman, David M. Almeida; Sleep Duration and Kindergarten Adjustment. Pediatrics 2022; e2021054362. 10.1542/peds.2021-054362