Study Finds Consistent 10+ Hours of Sleep Offers Boost to Kindergartners

A new study has found that children who regularly got 10+ hours of sleep per night, especially before the start of kindergarten, transitioned more successfully to kindergarten across the year than children with less regular sleeping patterns. The study, “Sleep Duration and Kindergarten Adjustment,” which will be published in the August 2022 issue of Pediatrics (published online July 11), found that among the three sleep measures examined among the 221 families who completed the study, regularity of nighttime sleep in which children slept 10 or more hours per night, especially at pre-K, consistently had more favorable outcomes in socio-emotional, learning engagement, and academic domains. These findings were controlled for income-to-poverty threshold ratios, child health status, and number of missed school days. Regularity of sufficient nighttime sleep appeared to be more important for school adjustment than overall amounts of sleep across the day or the proportion of 24-hour periods in which children got 10 or more hours of sleep. Efforts to promote a favorable transition to kindergarten should pay particular attention to sleep quality and regularity of 10+ hours of nightly child sleep established before beginning kindergarten, the authors conclude.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.