Archive for the ‘Sleep News’ Category

This isn’t a post about just children and sleep, per se, but the ongoing emphasis that healthy sleep habits are important for all of us, adults and children. I was doing some reading and have found that new studies are finding that it was once thought that sleep problems were a symptom of depression, but they are now considering that sleep problems may precede depression. In other words, if you begin to have substantial sleep problems, The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) strongly recommends that you urgently go see a sleep specialist. Depression is the most common form of mental health problem and it now considered as common in children as it is adults. Each year 17 million people suffer from depression and as many as 1 in 33 children may have depression. It is important to determine whether your child or anyone you know has it. Studies of insomnia in children has been shown to lead to depression as they grow older and sleep problems have been linked to increased risk of anxiety and aggression, too.

The suggested treatment for depression in children is a form of psychotherapy called short-term cognitive behavior therapy in which the child is able to learn to view themselves more positively and in some cases, medication is also recommended. But, the FDA, in 2004, strengthened their warning that antidepressants in children can increase suicidal thoughts and therefore doctors should weigh the risks and benefits before prescribing them.

This is all a scary thought. Who knew that my preschooler could get depressed? I sure didn’t. But, antidepressant medication for young children? That is scary too.

What do you think? Can your preschooler or young child be depressed? What do you think about antidepressants for children?

Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder in children can now be traced back to infancy, as this article has shown. Bipolar children were found to be more difficult to console in infancy, exhibit a decreased need for sleep or difficulty going to sleep. In addition, recurring nightmares or night terrors have also been present in these children. On top of the sleep problems being a symptom, these children may seem more gifted in their “movement, language, and thought patterns” and creative in their writing, art, music, etc.

Interestingly enough, there is some overlap in ADHD symptoms and Bipolar Disorder. Among other symptoms, ADHD children may not sleep as long as other kids, but they don’t have the nightmares bipolar kids have. ADHD kids are generally not crabby after waking up quickly and are not generally gifted like bipolar kids.

This is actually a little scary in that some of the descriptions of Bipolar Disorder and ADHD sound a little like my eldest son (no nightmares). I thought this information was interesting, as they find out more about ADHD and Bipolar Disorder. Weissbluth theorizes that because they know children with ADHD have sleep-related problems, that it’s possible the sleep problems led to the hyperactivity and ADHD (they still don’t know which comes first). He illustrates one example of how this might happen in his book and talks about chronic fatigue leading to an increased amount of neurotransmitters (adrenaline, noradrenaline, and dopamine), causing more activity in the child both day and night (less restful sleep). This article also discusses the relationship between sleep deprivation and the symptoms of ADHD being magnified. If this is true, this is yet another reason to help your child learn healthy sleep habits such that it does not lead to chronic fatigue and sleep loss, leading to a potential ADHD outcome. As I mentioned in my post about behavior problems and sleep, it is imperative that my eldest son gets enough sleep and if my ability to give him healthy sleep habits has made it less likely he will be later diagnosed with ADHD, even better!

Do you ever notice your child get hyper when (s)he isn’t sleeping enough?

Science Daily recently reported in this article that certain sleep disorders are linked to behavior issues in kids. The study showed that children with sleep disordered breathing such as snoring or sleep apnea and who were also overweight, did not sleep enough, or had another sleep problem such as insomnia, were more likely to have behavior issues.

More than half of the participants with sleep disordered breathing who were studied were either overweight or at risk for being overweight (see this post about the link between sleep and obesity).

In addition 36% were identified as “short sleepers” and almost half had another sleep problem diagnosed in addition to the snoring or sleep apnea. “Forty-seven percent had a history of behavioral problems and 23 percent had a reported diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” Researchers were surprised that the strongest predictor of behavior problems was not the severity of the sleep apnea or snoring, but the presence of another sleep problem such as insomnia.

Of course, I notice my eldest son’s behavior plummet when he stops getting enough sleep. Just last week he accidentally napped and it resulted in he not falling asleep until 9:45 p.m. and waking at 6:50 p.m. the next day (he usually sleeps about 12 hours). That led to yet another nap and another late night and it snowballed into 2 mornings of one hour tantrums (ugh). Pitiful to watch and it breaks your heart when you know the reason, but can’t do anything much about it. What we ended up doing was skipping rest time on Saturday, so there was no nap and he was able to go to bed at a very good 7 p.m. and he slept until 7:15 or so the next day and we had our happy boy back. So, even though he doesn’t have sleep apnea (that I know of, but he does snore a little), I did not need a study to tell me that less sleep = behavior problems. But, I thought this was an interesting study to share. I am sure there are plenty of parents who feel they are doing all the right things and putting their child to bed early, and although it appears (s)he may be getting enough sleep, if their child has more going on than meets the eye, the parent may not understand the poor behavior. As my son grows and starts school, I can see how sensitive he is to missed sleep and how critical it will be that he get enough.

Do you notice a big spike in behavior problems when your child doesn’t sleep enough?

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Time reported a few days ago that a Harvard study just concluded that too little sleep in babies and toddlers might be linked to obesity. And, they said, TV viewing heightened the effect. No surprise there. At first I was skeptical about this study of the link between sleep and obesity. After all, we are also living in a fast food era, watch hours of television, sit behind a computer for hours blogging, tweeting, and surfing the ‘net. Even if you are reading a book (you know…one that is made of paper and you don’t have to click to go to the next page), you are sitting. There are a lot of factors at play here with what is making our country obese. The CDC reports that adults aged 20–74 years the prevalence of obesity increased from 15.0% (in the 1976–1980 survey) to 32.9% (in the 2003–2004 survey) and children aged 2–5 years, the prevalence of overweight increased from 5.0% to 13.9%. So, I think we can all agree we DO have a weight problem, but what is the real driving force?

A good friend of mine and I were discussing this study and I expressed my skepticism. Although I am obsessed with sleep, my data analyst/scientific mind was having trouble getting away from too many variables and the inability for them to really study just ONE facet of a complicated toddler’s life. But, I thought this would be an appropriate place to at least explore how sleep can possibly be linked to obesity. I thought it was worth mentioning to you as another reason to get your children to get as much sleep as they need. As a bonus, if you are watching your own weight, it gives you a reason to get in that bed!

As my friend pointed out when supporting this article, circadian rhythms play a part in appetite suppressant while we sleep. Circadian rhythms are our bodies way of controlling when we sleep, get hungry, our mood and when we get IN the mood. Our bodies release hormones leptin and ghrelin to signal to our body we are full and hungry, respectively. When we don’t sleep enough, leptin levels go down and it has been shown that those of us without a circadian rhythm disorder, will get a spike of ghrelin in the middle of the night. This explains why I’d need to go out and eat after clubbing waaay back in the day, but I digress. So, naturally, if you aren’t sleeping when you should be and you get this surge of ghrelin, you can expect to get hungry and, most likely, eat. Simple as that. So, unless you go running after that late night snack or your toddler plays hard after his/her late night snack (when (s)he should be sleeping) and doesn’t sit down to watch Dora or Diego, you can see that you are more likely to eat too much that day.

What I have still concluded for myself and my family is that sleep is ever more important in our lives, but so is what we eat and how active we are. But, then that’s not news. We hear it over and over and over again…so why aren’t we all listening? I have an idea. Let’s make treadmills net, twitter and blog-enabled! Not a bad idea for you inventors out there…

I want to thank my friend for inspiring what to write in this post. I’d link to her blog, but I don’t think she has one. I’m sure hers would be very interesting, though. She has a lot of interesting thoughts.

Thoughts?

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