Parents often complain that teenagers do not get enough sleep. It’s hard to wake them up for school, on weekends they sleep until lunchtime, and they nod off in class. What are the reasons? How to regulate a child's sleep? These questions were answered by Elena Savolyuk, a pediatrician at the Dobrobut Medical Center.

If a teenager does not get enough sleep, first of all you should pay attention to his lifestyle. Lifestyle reasons:

lack of sleep. Children under 12 years of age need 9-10 hours of sleep at night; for teenagers this time is reduced to 8.5-9 hours. With insufficient sleep, children feel overwhelmed and cannot concentrate on the lesson;

excessive workload: intense school work, increased exercise stress, passion for computer games and the Internet;

wrong or unbalanced diet, lack of vitamins and minerals;

consumption of energy drinks;

drinking plenty of fluids before bed;

physical inactivity;

emotional overload and stress. This may include increased anxiety, as well as adaptation to changes in the usual rhythm of life associated with the transition from vacation to school everyday life;

poor sleep hygiene: sleeping in an unventilated room, in the light, high level noise, lack of oxygen.

Taking certain medications can also cause drowsiness.

The causes of lethargy and drowsiness can be the following somatic conditions:

excess weight;

decreased hemoglobin content in the blood;

renal dysfunction;

dysfunction thyroid gland;

diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

How to help your child sleep?

baby should sleep in a cool place dark room, in which there is no entertainment (TV, computer);

You should go to bed and wake up at the same time; a teenager’s sleep should last 8.5-9 hours;

should maximum amount time to be outdoors;

it is important to ensure that the child receives regular and balanced nutrition;

V free time Pay more attention to outdoor games and entertainment, sports games.

When to see a doctor?

If all the recommendations for improving lifestyle have been followed, but you notice that the child is still lethargic and sleepy, and it is difficult for him to concentrate on school, then perhaps the reason is some kind of somatic disease. For determining accurate diagnosis you should contact your pediatrician. He will collect anamnesis, examine the child and prescribe tests to examine organs and systems. If he suspects a malfunction of the thyroid gland, an endocrinological examination will be prescribed, the same applies to other organs. Depending on the results of the examination, the pediatrician will either prescribe treatment himself or refer him to additional examination and consultation to more to a specialist: endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, neurologist, etc.

Tatyana Koryakina

However, children's sleep habits can vary greatly and still be considered normal. Some children need much more or less sleep than others. During middle adolescence, sleep disturbances are quite rare, although most teens experience nightmares or other sleep disturbances from time to time. In some cases, sleep problems are caused by emotional reasons. For example, insomnia (the inability to fall asleep or sleep for a long time without waking up) can be caused by a stressful situation and anxiety in the child. If a child is afraid of the dark or afraid to be alone in the room at night, he is unlikely to be able to relax and fall asleep.
Here are some of the most common sleep disorders and their treatments (if any).

Bedtime problems in children

Does your child try to fight you and resist your instructions to go to bed at night? Perhaps he needs several hours to calm down before he goes to bed?
Some families throughout for long years struggling to ensure a calm and peaceful bedtime for the child. For them, every night is an arena of struggle with many “departures and returns” until the teenager finally falls asleep.
The reasons for such difficulties with going to bed can be different. Let's list some.

• Common problems with negative behavior and the child's attempt to resist parents, in which he has difficulty following and maintaining rules and a certain schedule, including going to bed when he would like to play more. Most sleep problems are of this nature.
• Separation anxiety. Many children who spend little time with their parents will have difficulty being separated from them again before bedtime. Some children may even have difficulty being separated from their parents at school during the day.
• The desire to spend time alone with parents when brothers and sisters are not around.
• Too much early time going to bed. Many children experience disturbances in their sleep-wake schedule. A child may be a night owl when their internal clock is programmed to go to bed late in the evening and wake up late in the morning; or the child may be a “morning person” who goes to bed early and wakes up very early. Talk to your doctor about how you can make gradual changes to your teen's sleep-wake schedule to fit the family's daily schedule.
• Habits and acquired behavior. Some children simply get used to staying up for a long time in the evening, when ordinary household chores are completed and everything in the house calms down.
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Some hyperactive and impulsive children need less sleep than their peers. These teens may also have difficulty calming down and going to sleep.

If these types of sleep struggles continue to persist, talk to your pediatrician about it.

Sleepwalking in children

Approximately 15% of all children aged 5 to 12 years have experienced at least one episode of sleepwalking. This disorder (also called somnambulism) is more common in boys than in girls; In a small number of children, sleepwalking occurs several times a week.
Sleepwalking usually occurs in the second or third hour of sleep at night. The child sits up in bed, after which, without fully waking up, he gets up; As a rule, he hesitantly walks somewhere, while his eyes are open, and his gaze is absolutely meaningless.
A child may wander around the house for several minutes, even opening doors, but all his actions have no purpose. If you speak to him, he may react in some way to your words, but his speech, as a rule, is incomprehensible and unintelligible. Then he will return to his bed, fall asleep on his own and continue to sleep, and in the morning, when he wakes up, he will not remember anything about his night walk.
If your child is a sleepwalker, you need to minimize any potential risk of harm. Make sure that the environment in your home is safe enough - i.e. entrance doors must be locked so that the child cannot go outside, stairs must be closed so that the child cannot go up or down them, dangerous objects must be put away. If you find your child sleepwalking, gently guide him back to bed.
Sleepwalking usually occurs among members of the same family. For most children, this strange habit goes away on its own, usually by the time they reach adolescence. If your child often walks at night, your pediatrician may prescribe medications to help reduce sleepwalking.

Sleep talking in children

Sleep talking (or mniloquy) is much more common than sleepwalking. During sleep, the child begins to speak, often incomprehensibly and monotonously and usually for no longer than 30 seconds. Most cases occur when the child does not dream.
In such cases, it is extremely rare that any treatment is required or prescribed. However, if sleep talking occurs in combination with sleepwalking, in some cases pediatricians recommend taking certain medications.

Nightmares in children

In middle adolescence, nightmares are quite common. Usually a child dreams horrible dream with scary monsters or other frightening creatures. The child may wake up in fear, breathe rapidly and begin to cry. In some cases, the experience can be so terrible that the child may even refuse to go back to sleep, insisting on being constantly reassured. Hug your child and talk calmly to him, assuring him that it was just a bad dream. Often, a child may begin to visually describe the details of a bad dream, thereby trying to calm himself and his parents. The child may even remember the dream the next day and express a desire to discuss it further.
Most children have nightmares only occasionally, usually in the early morning hours. If they happen often enough (or if the same scary dream happens again), discuss it with your doctor. Nightmares tend to occur more frequently during stressful situation, so if the dreams are recurring, try to assess the stresses in your child's life. IN in rare cases The pediatrician may advise the child to seek advice from a specialist.

Night terrors in children

Night terrors are another manifestation of nightmares that can be difficult for parents to observe. About 90-180 minutes after the child falls asleep, he suddenly jumps up and sits up in bed, opening his eyes, and begins to cry loudly and ask for help. Over the next few minutes, he may have difficulty breathing, moaning, muttering, thrashing around, and may be confused and agitated. The frequency of his breathing and heartbeat will increase significantly. He will not respond to his parents' attempts to calm him down and may even push them away from him. All this can continue for 30-60 minutes until the child manages to fall asleep peacefully again, and the next morning he will not remember anything about what happened, which completely confuses parents and instills fear - hence the name “night terrors”.

Night terrors (or nightmares) occur in a relatively small number of children (1 to 5%) and occur during deep sleep when the child does not dream. No matter how terrifying they may seem to parents, such nightmares are not a reflection psychological disorders. They serve as a normal, although rare, part of the body's transition from one phase of sleep to another. Sometimes physical fatigue may contribute to a child's night terrors. Most children outgrow night terrors without any treatment, and there is nothing parents can do to prevent them from occurring. Calmness and understanding on the part of parents are very important, although such night terrors cause more stress for the mother and father than for the children themselves.

Sleepiness during the day in children

Some children are excessively sleepy during the daytime hours. The most common cause of sleepiness during the day is insufficient sleep at night. Some medications may also affect children's normal activities.

Narcolepsy
Children with narcolepsy experience strong, uncontrollable urges to sleep. They may suddenly fall asleep for a few minutes or as long as an hour - often in inappropriate places, such as a classroom. If this happens, the baby's body may relax and fall to the floor. The child wakes up with renewed vigor, but after an hour or two he may again
feel drowsy, after which the whole process is repeated. Narcolepsy usually first occurs during adolescence and tends to affect members of the same family. Although the condition is considered lifelong, it can usually be successfully treated with medications.

Sleep apnea attacks
In children with sleep apnea, breathing stops briefly several times a night due to an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to enlarged tonsils and adenoids or excessive fatness. When a child begins to instinctively gasp for air, he wakes up for a moment, his normal breathing is restored, and he immediately falls asleep, perhaps without even remembering what happened. Because such short awakenings can occur dozens or even hundreds of times per night, the child does not sleep enough and experiences lethargy and drowsiness the next day. Sometimes these children may snore in their sleep, which is also a sign of an obstruction in the airways.
It is necessary to find out and treat the cause of the obstruction respiratory tract to get rid of apnea. Once the cause is eliminated, the child will be able to enjoy normal sleep again.

Bedwetting in children
Bedwetting can be related to a child's sleep pattern, but it is not usually considered a sleep disorder.

In order to function properly during the day, everyone needs to get a good night's sleep. For teenagers, this means they need about nine hours of sleep every night. But practice shows that in reality this is far from the case - teenagers sleep much less than they should. Hence – inattention in class, absent-mindedness, memory gaps, general weakening of the body, frequent colds. According to the National Survey Foundation, only about one-fifth of teens (20%) get enough sleep each night for their age.

Teenagers' internal clock

Adolescence is always to blame when we're talking about about sleep. Internal clock organisms, officially called circadian rhythms, change with puberty. Melatonin, a brain hormone associated with sleep, is released late in the evening in adolescents. Therefore, if more youngest child easily falls asleep quite early, teenagers are still not tired, and after a few hours they need to get a good night's sleep, longer than they should - after all, at about seven in the morning they need to get up for school or lyceum. So it turns out that at night the teenager cannot fall asleep for a long time, and in the morning he cannot wake up, but is forced to do this due to a strict social schedule.

This becomes a serious problem for teenagers with a lot of academic work, which depletes the body even more against the background chronic lack of sleep. To prevent your child from being late for school, you should wake him up an hour earlier than usual, so that waking up is not hasty and therefore stressful for him. But you also need to make sure that your teenager goes to bed on time.

The effects of sleep deprivation on a teenager's body

When teenagers don't get enough sleep, it can have serious consequences. side effects. It is difficult for a child to concentrate at school; he may sit and doze off in class, which naturally causes bewilderment to the teacher. This can lead to decreased productivity at work and school. Unfortunately, this is a common problem for teenagers. IN extreme cases lack of sleep can lead to unmotivated aggression, angry behavior, or depression (which can lead to further big problems with sleep).

Lack of sleep can also make a teen more prone to acne and other skin problems. The poor concentration and slow reaction times common in sleep-deprived children can be very dangerous consequences. Sometimes teenagers' sleep problems are symptoms of diseases or other medical reasons such as side effects from medications, sleep apnea, anemia or mononucleosis. Then a visit between the parents and the teenager to a pediatrician and psychologist is necessary.

What can parents do to help their teenager get enough sleep?

When communicating with a teenage child, parents can do proper sleep priority in his daily routine. First of all, you need to develop a sleep schedule and the hours at which the teenager wakes up. It is very important to maintain this plan even on weekends. If a child stays up at night and then lies in bed until Saturday or Sunday afternoon, it will be very difficult to change his internal biorhythms again. Then it will become almost impossible for a teenager to fall asleep on Monday normal time and wake up early in the morning.

In order for a child to fall asleep and wake up on time, you need to create conditions for him to good night. Keep your child's room dimly lit, and turn off the computer screen before bed. Turn off outside noise. You also need to make sure that your teenager's room is warm enough.

In the first half of the day, you need to avoid bright light and sun, which will allow the teenager to wake up comfortably. If your teen is tired and wants to take an afternoon nap, limit their nap time to 30 minutes; being able to sleep longer may prevent him from falling asleep at night. Try to ensure that your teen avoids nighttime homework and does not sit up all night studying.

Have your teen stay away from prolonged viewing of television, computer games, and other overstimulating programs and activities 2 hours before bedtime. About the harm electronic media in a teenager's bedroom this fact speaks. In 2006, the National Survey Foundation found that children with four or more electronic devices in their bedrooms were chronically sleep-deprived. When your teen gets into bed, make sure they don't do any other activities and focus only on falling asleep. Additionally, teens should avoid chocolate and caffeinated drinks after 4 p.m. This will help them fall asleep better.

Every third child school age sleeps on average 4 hours at night due to computer games, watching movies, socializing in social networks or listening to music. Moreover, most parents do not even suspect that their children surf the Internet at night - smartphones and tablets allow them to have fun until the morning, without getting out of bed.

According to a sociological survey, 99% of teenagers watch TV at night and get lost in computer games, listen to music or talk on the phone, and two-thirds of those surveyed said that during the night they manage to do all this at once. A quarter of students reported that they often fall asleep listening to the TV or music without turning it off.

Overall, more than half of the young survey participants admitted that after several sleepless nights they bring home bad grades from school. This is not surprising: according to calculations, one sleepless night (or two with 3-4 hours of rest) reduces a person’s cognitive functions by 30%, two sleepless nights in a row - by 60%. But in addition to a decrease in academic performance, as well as overwork of the body and fragile psyche, attention decreases - and it is dangerous for an absent-minded pedestrian to be on the road.

Mutiny in the bedroom

We were all once schoolchildren - restless teenagers who so lack time “for themselves”. We liked to experiment, break the rules, test our own capabilities - and this is completely normal. However, this does not mean that the child is always aware of the carelessness of his behavior and its consequences.

Let's remember the world record for the longest stay awake, listed in the Guinness Book of Records in 1965. Who installed it? - Well, of course, a curious and self-confident schoolboy! Randy Gardner didn't sleep a wink for 11 days. At first he felt very tired and irritable. From the fifth day he developed syndromes that are typical of Alzheimer's disease. He then began to experience hallucinations and paranoia.

Despite this, later another idiot was found who managed to stay awake for 28 days. Alas, the young “genius” did not know that, due to harm to health, this category had already been excluded by publishers, and his “feat” was never crowned with recognition. The author of this article, against the backdrop of such competition, doesn’t even have much to boast about - in his dossier of school eccentricities there is only a three-day wakefulness, the sponsor of which was interesting book and half a can of coffee. This epic story ended ingloriously - on an algebra test, with a face in integrals... But there is still no desire to repeat it.

You shouldn’t react violently and sharply reprimand a teenager for wanting to add a few more hours to his day: the only thing caring moms and dads achieve by doing this is the child’s reciprocal anger and more careful secrecy the next night. However, it is necessary to clearly explain to the student that depriving oneself of a night’s rest means taking a loan from one’s health, and at a significant interest rate. The child must have general idea about how much important processes occur in his body during sleep - otherwise he will decide that some useless “childish” rule is simply being imposed on him.

Why do you need to sleep at night?

22:00 / The number of leukocytes in the blood doubles - this is the immune system checking the territory entrusted to it. Body temperature drops. The biological clock they signal: it’s time to sleep.

23:00 / The body relaxes more and more, but in every cell they are in full swing recovery processes. Of course, only on the condition that the person is already in bed, in silence and darkness.

00:00 / Consciousness is increasingly dominated by dreams, and the brain continues to work, sorting out the information received during the day.

1:00 - 2:00 / All organs are resting, only the liver is working hard, cleaning the sleeping body of accumulated toxins.

3:00 / Complete physiological decline: arterial pressure at the lower limit, pulse and breathing are rare.

4:00 / The brain is supplied minimum quantity blood and is not ready to wake up, but the hearing becomes extremely acute - you can wake up from the slightest noise.

5:00 / The kidneys are resting, the muscles are dozing, the metabolism is slow, but in principle the body is already ready to wake up.

6:00 / The adrenal glands begin to release the hormones adrenaline and norepinephrine into the blood, which increase blood pressure and make the heart beat faster. The body is already preparing to awaken, although the consciousness is still immersed in fog.

7:00 / Finest hour immune system. It's time to warm up and take a contrast shower.

These are only average figures, since each age has its own norms for sleep duration. So, junior schoolchildren should sleep up to 10 hours every night, middle schoolers up to 9 hours, and teenagers at least 8 hours. Moreover, additional training loads, stress or illness require an additional couple of hours of rest.

Completely make up for lost time sleepless night rest is impossible, but it won’t hurt the child to regain at least a little strength. To do this, you need to put him to bed after class, but not late, but for a maximum of an hour. This strategy allows you to pay off the sleep “debt” without disturbing the natural rhythm of the student’s life.

Why does a glowing screen prevent you from falling asleep?

Spending the evening in front of a laptop, tablet, e-reader, etc. electronic devices With the display backlit, the child (like any adult) really does not feel the desire to sleep. After all, the hormone melatonin, which helps regulate the schoolchild’s sleep-wake cycle, is produced in accordance with the brightness of the lighting.

WITH biological point vision, the brain should release more melatonin in the evening, when it gets dark so that a person sleeps, and less during the day, when he needs to stay awake. Therefore, in the evening it is necessary to turn off devices that direct light into the face. In addition to suppressing melatonin production, some also stimulate the brain, such as cable TV or a computer game.

In the evening, to truly relax and then fall asleep peacefully, it is better to give preference to quietly listening to calm music and audio books, or reading the classic “paper version” in the soft lighting of a bedside lamp.