Category Archives: Sleep

Teens plus drowsy driving equals a dangerous situation

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Sleepy drivingFor many high school students, summer vacation means late nights out with friends, summer jobs, sports tournaments and overnight camps. Juggling all the summer activities can add up to irregular sleep schedules and too little sleep, putting teens at risk for drowsy driving.

Teen drivers are new to the road and need to be alert and free of distractions when driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, teen drivers are four times more likely to be in a fatal car accident. That statistic would probably be higher if it …Continue reading →

Spring into good sleep habits

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Spring is here! It’s so nice to have brighter, longer days, but it might mean that you’re having a hard time getting your kids to sleep in the evening.

You probably know that adults need 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. But how much sleep do kids need?

Infants (birth to 12 months old) – 10 ½ to 18 hours (total of nighttime and naps)
Toddlers (1 to 3 years old) – 12 to 14 hours (total of nighttime and naps)
Preschoolers (3 to 5 years old) – 11 to 13 hours
School-age kids (6 to 12 years old) – 10 to 11 hours
Teens (13 to 18 years old) – 9 to 9 ½  hours

Here’s a helpful sleep checklist: …Continue reading →

Smoke alarms don’t always wake a sleeping child

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During the cold, snowy Wisconsin winter nights, I like to enjoy a cozy fire in our fireplace, sip hot cocoa and bundle up in a warm sweater. Sadly, winter also means a higher risk of home fires.

Did you know that over half of home fires happen late at night when people are sleeping? A nighttime house fire can be devastating, but knowing a few facts may protect your family if you wake up in the middle of the night and smell smoke.

Kids sleep more deeply than adults, and that may make it more difficult to wake them during an emergency. I recently read a study that said young children often sleep through …Continue reading →

Teens — too wired to sleep

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Only 20 percent of all teens get the recommended nine hours of sleep per night. Yet more than half of all teens report feeling sleepy during the day.  The impact of this includes being late to school or falling asleep in school, being too tired to exercise or driving while drowsy.

According to a new study, electronic devices may contribute to teens not getting enough sleep at night. In the study, 100 teens filled out questionnaires about how much time after 9 p.m. they spent with various electronic devices.  The results were eye-opening: 82 percent reported …Continue reading →

Bad dreams and nighttime screams

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With Halloween around the corner this month, horror movies are filling our theaters and TV guides. If your child has bad dreams, avoid these films and pay attention to what your child watches on TV.

Nightmares occur at all ages, but the peak ages are between 3 and 6 years old, when most children’s imaginations blossom. The content of these dreams varies across the age groups. Younger children may dream about separation from parents, shots at the doctor’s office or scary monsters. Older children may have nightmares about stories they’ve seen …Continue reading →

Back-to-school checklist: school supplies, clothes, sleep!

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School will be starting soon. It’s time to help get your kids on a healthy back to school sleep schedule.

Kids need more sleep than adults. Children ages 6 to 12 years old need 10 to 11 hours of sleep at night. Teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep.

It’s important to get enough sleep because chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to poor school performance, behavioral, developmental and mood problems, weight gain and obesity. Drowsy teens who get behind the wheel of a car can cause a deadly accident.

Here’s a sleep checklist to start working on now:

…Continue reading →

Spring ahead … and get some sleep

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Most Americans will “spring ahead” and set their clocks forward one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 8, marking the beginning of Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time first was proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 as a way to conserve energy. London builder William Willett advanced the idea when he wrote the pamphlet, “Waste of Daylight” in 1907. In this publication, Willett proposed turning clocks 20 minutes ahead by 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and turning them back …Continue reading →

Is your family getting the ‘Zzzs’ it needs?

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Next week, March 1-8 marks National Sleep Awareness Week, a time to take a look at our own sleep habits. Do your family members get enough sleep? Are you getting quality sleep? If not, is your disrupted sleep affecting day-to-day activities? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it’s important to note that sleep is a key component to our health, performance, safety and quality of life. Sleep is just as important as exercise and good nutrition! Adults should sleep between seven and nine hours a night and adolescents on average should be sleeping approximately nine hours a night. Toddlers and newborns …Continue reading →