How long a child needs to sleep depends on his age. It is very important that you comply with your sleep hours to have a healthy development.
Sleeping is vital to ensure the correct physical and mental development of your child. However, an excess of hours of sleep can have the opposite effect, making you feel more tired as if you had not slept at all.
How long does a child need to sleep?
1. Newborns need 16 to 20 hours of sleep daily.
2. At three months of age, they require 14-15 hours.
3. When they start with solid food, they sleep most hours at night, about 10-12 at night and another 2 or 3 at nap.
4. From 2 years old, they sleep about 12 hours in total, of which at least one has to be a nap.
5. When they go to school it is normal that they leave the nap, therefore, they need to sleep at least 10 hours at night.
Does it hurt to sleep a lot?
Sleeping the right hours is essential to take care of health, and even more so in the case of children since while they sleep, their brain and body develop. Little sleep produces tiredness, fatigue, poor assimilation of nutrients, poor school performance, less energy to play and have fun, etc.
However, sleeping too much is also not good. A lot of sleep causes the body to relax excessively because the biorhythms decrease and the metabolic speed also decreases. The body slows down, and you feel increasingly tired and less eager to carry out your daily activities. This is what is known as a feeling of lethargy since the actions are slowed down due to the prolongation of the time in which the organism hardly has any activity.
Sleeping excessively or having difficulties waking up can be a symptom of a physical illness (flu, anemia?) Or problems at school, with classmates, at home. You may take refuge in sleep to avoid facing your difficulties. Talk to him and try to find out if something happens to him or if he’s worried about something.
Should he be forced to sleep less?
– If you are not sick, check the time your child sleeps. Ten hours in a row, deep and peaceful sleep, is more than enough.
– If excess sleep is due to a personal problem, find out what it is and try to fix it. If you are worried, no matter how many hours you sleep your mind will not rest.
– Establish a sleep routine. This will make it easier to control what sleeps. According to the time you wake up to go to school, calculate the time you must go to sleep so that it is not more than 10-11 hours.
– Don’t be so strict. If he is tired or has slept poorly one day, let him take a nap or go to bed a little earlier. For a day that sleeps more than normal nothing happens.