Nap Times Could Uncover the Secrets of Your Baby’s Brain Development

However, according to a new study approved for publication in JCPP Advances, certain youngsters are more adept at absorbing knowledge while sleeping, therefore they nap less frequently.

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Others, often those with fewer words and worse cognitive abilities, require more frequent naps.

Limiting Naps for Kids Doesn’t Help Their Brain Development

According to the research team, limiting naps for young children would not promote their brain development, and they should be permitted to snooze as frequently and for as long as they require.

Lead researcher Dr. Teodora Gliga said, “There is a lot of parental anxiety around sleep. Parents worry that their kids don’t nap as much as expected for their age—or nap too frequently and for too long.

“But our research shows that how frequently a child naps reflects their individual cognitive need. Some are more efficient at consolidating information during sleep, so they nap less frequently.”

“Children with smaller vocabularies or a lower score in a measure of executive function, nap more frequently.”

“Young children will naturally nap for as long as they need and they should be allowed to do just that,” she added.

During the 2020 lockdown, the study team monitored 463 infants aged eight months to three years.

Parents were polled regarding their children’s sleeping habits, capacity to focus on a task, recall knowledge, and the amount of words they comprehended and could utter.

They also questioned parents about their socioeconomic situation, including postcode, income, and education, as well as how much screen time and outdoor activities their child participated in.

Dr. Gliga said, “Lockdown gave us an opportunity to study children’s intrinsic sleep needs because when children are in childcare, they rarely nap as much as they need to.”

“Because nurseries were closed, it meant less disturbance to the children’s natural sleep patterns. None of the children taking part were attending day care.”

Naps: An Indicator of Children’s Cognitive Development

“What we found is that the structure of daytime sleep is an indicator of cognitive development.”
“Infants with more frequent but shorter naps than expected for their age had smaller vocabularies, and worse cognitive function.”

“We also found that this negative association between vocabulary and frequency of naps was stronger in older children,” she added.

“While the majority of parents told us that their child’s sleep was unaffected by lockdown, parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to report a worsening in sleep.”

“Screen time increased during lockdown and outdoor activities decreased but these did not explain differences in children’s sleep.”

“Previous work suggested that caregivers should encourage frequent naps, in pre-school children.”

Different Children Have Different Sleep Needs

“Our findings suggest that children have different sleep needs—some children may drop naps earlier because they don’t need them anymore. Others may still need to nap past three years of age.”

“In the U.K., preschools enrolling 3 to 5-year-olds have no provisions for napping. Caregivers should use a child’s mental age and not chronological age to ascertain a child’s sleep needs,” she added.

Reference :

1. More frequent naps are associated with lower cognitive development in a cohort of 8- to 38-month-old children, during the Covid-19 pandemic – (https:wrap.warwick.ac.uk/177343/)

Source: Medindia