Are your kids getting enough sleep? Many parents and pediatric
healthcare professionals are asking themselves this question on
a daily basis. A study by The American Academy of Pediatrics
suggests that this question and our need to ask it is nothing
new. Researchers find that we, as a society, are consistently
concerned about the insufficient amount of sleep our children
are getting while being unable to identify a norm or find a
solution. According to details outlined in the study: “These
enduring concerns have spawned a number of attempts at
formulating recommendations on appropriate sleep durations for
children and adolescents, dating as far back as 1897….Despite
growing concerns, few studies have aimed to determine how much
sleep children actually need to provide an evidence base for
these recommendations.” Using academic search engines,
researches identified articles dating from 1897 to 2009
containing data related to the actual sleep durations of
children (aged 5 to 18 years) and the recommended sleep d