Parents have long fretted over the amount of shut-eye their children need and are getting.
Researchers at the University of South Australia in Adelaide tracked more than a century’s worth of recommendations about children’s sleep and compared them with how much kids actually slept over the years. The findings were published in the March issue of Pediatrics.
The research team combed through 32 sets of sleep studies dating from 1897 to 2009. On average, children’s daily sleep fell about 75 minutes over the decades, while sleep guidelines decreased about 70 minutes—an almost identical amount. Kids consistently slept about 37 minutes less than recommended.
Authors of the study noted that regardless of time period, parents and doctors blamed “modern life” and overstimulation for preventing children from getting the sleep they needed.
Researchers also found that there hasn’t been consistent, empirical evidence to support most sleep recommendations for children. Still, there is a simple way for parents to determine if their kids are well-rested.
“You will know that your child is sleeping enough if they wake up on their own rather than being awoken,” Dr. David Gozal, an expert in childhood sleep problems at the University of Chicago, told Reuters. “If they don’t get up on time, make them go to bed earlier.”
