Recommendations on Sleep Requirements for Children and Teens

In a project funded by the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project (a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AASM and SRS), the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has released its recommendations for the amount of sleep needed to promote optimal health in children and teenagers to avoid the health risks of insufficient sleep.

sleeping baby

If your baby isn’t getting the recommended hours of sleep, he or she could have sleep apnea.

The recommendations in the consensus statement said that over a normal 24-hour period:

  • Infants four to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours (including naps)
  • Children one to two years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours (including naps)
  • Children three to five years of age should sleep 10 to 13 (including naps)
  • Children six to 12 years of age should sleep nine to 12 hours
  • Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep eight to 10 hours

The recommendations follow a 10-month project conducted by a Pediatric Consensus Panel of 13 of the nation’s foremost sleep experts, and are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Sleep Research Society and the American Association of Sleep Technologists.

The Pediatric Consensus Panel found that sleeping the number of recommended hours on a regular basis is associated with overall better health outcomes that include improved:

  • Attention and behavior
  • Learning and memory
  • Emotional regulation, mental and physical health
  • Quality of life

Conversely, getting too little sleep is associated with:

The panel also found that insufficient sleep in teenagers is associated with increased risk of self-harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

For more information on the findings and conclusions, click here.

If you are a parent that suspects that your child or teenager may not be getting enough sleep, feel free to consult your doctor to learn more.

If you or someone you know is in need of a better night’s sleep, contact us for a no obligation consultation. We are the sleep specialists at Chevy Chase ENT located in the Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. metro area dealing with sleep apnea and sleep-related problems.  We can help diagnose your condition, recommend whether a sleep study would be beneficial, and offer you a variety of treatment options including CPAPRadio Frequency Ablation (RFA) and more.