Children under the age of 5 often have different napping patterns when they attend childcare compared to when they are at home, with older ones tending to nap more and younger ones less. in the years before school, making it important to find out whether these misalignments have any repercussions for their emotional regulation and development.
鈥淥ne of the reasons I wanted to [research this] is because I have distinct memories of lying on a cot when I was at childcare myself, staring up at the painted blue ceiling and feeling so frustrated because I鈥檇 been told I had to sleep but I couldn鈥檛,鈥� says at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. 鈥淚 guess because I had outgrown napping earlier than other kids.鈥�
颁丑颈濒诲谤别苍鈥檚 sleep needs gradually decline as they develop from babies to toddlers to preschoolers, dropping from multiple naps per day to a single nap to none. However, each child progresses through these stages at different rates.
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Normore and his colleagues wondered whether the common practice at childcare centres of scheduling a single nap in the middle of the day, when all children are encouraged to sleep regardless of whether they want to or not, may be at odds with individual differences in sleep needs.
They analysed data from a study that asked parents of 188 children aged 1 to 4.5 attending childcare centres in Brisbane to fill out monthly surveys about how many naps their children had on childcare and non-childcare days in the previous week. Information about nap duration was not collected.
The children most commonly attended childcare three days a week. Between the ages of 2.2 and 4.3, they usually napped as often at childcare as they did on non-childcare days. However, children younger than 2.2 years tended to nap less often at childcare, while those older than 4.3 years napped more often at childcare.
Younger children may have napped less at childcare because they still preferred two or more naps given the option at home, whereas they only had the opportunity to have one nap at childcare, says Normore. Conversely, older children may have napped more because they had naturally outgrown daytime naps at home but were still encouraged to sleep at childcare, he says.
In separate research, , also at the University of Queensland, and her colleagues found that parents and childcare staff often . For example, some parents don鈥檛 want their children to nap at all at childcare because it pushes back the time they go to sleep at night.
But a set sleep time for all children at childcare centres allows staff to complete paperwork and other tasks, and ideally provides a quiet environment so children who want to sleep can do so without disruption. Childcare staff told the researchers that some children who no longer nap at home still benefit from sleeping at childcare because it is a more tiring environment.
鈥淚n an ideal world, you would be able to have a very flexible, personalised situation in which the child鈥檚 sleep needs are met and the parents鈥� home schedule is considered, but I interact with a lot of service providers and they often don鈥檛 have the staff and resources to be able to offer that,鈥� says Normore.
One compromise may be for staff to wake sleeping children when they see their eyes start to move underneath their eyelids, says at Murdoch 颁丑颈濒诲谤别苍鈥檚 Research Institute in Melbourne. This usually occurs after about 45 minutes and indicates they have completed one 鈥渟leep cycle鈥� and are coming into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. 鈥淚f you gently rouse them then, rather than letting them sleep for an hour-and-a-half, they鈥檒l have that good bit of sleep but it鈥檚 not a battle to get them to bed at night,鈥� she says.
Some parents worry that if their child sleeps too little at childcare, or if they sleep too much and then have late bedtimes, their emotional regulation and development will be affected. 鈥淎 mismatch between nap need and opportunities for napping may have negative effects on children鈥檚 daily function,鈥� says Normore.
However, his team recently conducted a clinical trial in which they trained staff at six childcare services to cater better to children鈥檚 individual sleep needs. By the end, the researchers found in sleep problems and 24-hour sleep patterns in children at these services compared with those attending services with uniform mandatory nap times.
鈥淚 think at this stage, the preliminary evidence would suggest that [sleeping differently at childcare compared to at home] is not harmful, but it鈥檚 very much preliminary,鈥� says Hiscock.
Normore鈥檚 team is now planning to analyse data from sleep-tracking watches worn by children attending childcare services to uncover any effects on overall sleep patterns, including total sleep duration during day and night.
Sleep Medicine
