Important For Growth, How Many Hours Babies Need Sleep In A Day? This Is The Expert's Explanation

Illustration of a baby's need for proper sleep (Unsplash/Minnie Zhou)

JAKARTA – For children in their growing period, enough sleep is needed to support the growth of the brain, body, emotions, and behavior. How much sleep do children need in a day?

In this technological era, sleep is often consumed by accessing various application platforms on the device. Ranging from games to spectacles that take up a child's sleep time. Given this, parents need to know and ensure that their children need adequate sleep so that their emotional and physical growth is optimal.

Quoting from the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) reported by the Sleep Foundation, Tuesday, December 21, the range of children's sleep hours needs to be adjusted to their age. Newborns up to 3 months old need 14-17 hours of sleep a day. Age after, 4-11 months, sleep time is getting less that is 12-15 hours every day.

In toddlers aged 1-2 years 11-14 hours, and preschool aged 3-5 years 10-12 hours. Well, at school age or the age of children between 6-13 years need sleep for 9-11 hours. The sleep range includes night sleep and naps. Based on NSF records, the above recommendations may be reduced for 1 hour or more.

Babies need more sleep because at an early age after birth, they are in a period of substantial growth. With enough sleep, it allows the brain to develop, network development is also more optimal, and both are related to the development of thinking and learning in shaping behavior.

Naps are also needed by babies and children. But as you get older, the hours of sleep will decrease, although you still need an adequate portion of sleep according to your age.

According to a study, napping is very important for babies. Naps allow babies to consolidate memories so that brain memory can work properly.

Factors that affect a baby's sleep are diet. Some studies have found that babies wake up more at night feeling hungry. According to another study, it is proven that babies who are breastfed in between sleep make it possible to get quality sleep. Although the evidence is in debate, but parents need to drink enough milk so that the baby gets enough nutrition.

What if your baby is sleep deprived?

These concerns need to be discussed with professionals and pediatricians. Because parents need to keep a sleep diary to track their child's sleep patterns. This needs to be done not only in infants, but also in older children.

Lack of sleep in childhood can be correlated with problems with weight, mental health, behavior, and cognitive performance. All factors that cause sleep deprivation need to be diagnosed clinically.