Sleep pattern in children aged 12 to 36 months age

Objective  To evaluate the sleep pattern in children aged 12 to 36 months.

Method  Cross-sectional study, carried out in a sample of 808 children aged 12–36 months who attended day care centers in the district of Viseu, Portugal. The data was collected through a questionnaire applied to parents between November 2018 and September 2019. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Portugal.

Results  The children were found to sleep between 9 h 30 min and 18 h (M=12 h 25 min ±1 h 02 min) per day during the week and between 9 h and 19 h (M=12 h 49 min ±1 h 15 min) on weekends. The children went to bed and woke up later on weekends than during the week (M=21 h 42 min ±40 min, M=8 h 15 min ±50 min, respectively). Most did not take morning naps, but only afternoon naps.

Conclusion  The results indicate that most children (91.5% on weekdays; 85.6% on the weekend) sleep the recommended number of hours. The youngest are the ones who sleep the most.

Implications for practice  It is important that, during child health surveillance consultations, nurses provide health education to parents about the importance of maintaining a sleep pattern that is adequate for their child's age.

Keywords:
Nursing; Infant; Preschool; Child health; Sleep