Sleep deprivation for young M¯aori
As any parent of young children will know, sleep is golden – but just how much sleep should pre-schoolers be getting each day? And what role does sleep, or the lack of, play in the lives of little ones and their families? Greer Berry reports.
New research has found significant differences in the quality and amount of sleep young children are getting, with ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation key determining factors.
Massey University’s Dr Diane ‘Dee’ Muller found Ma¯ ori are twice as likely to have short and inconsistent sleep, and preschoolers living in the most deprived neighbourhoods were four times more likely to have short sleep during the week.
While there was a large body of work looking at sleep inequities in adults, there was a ‘‘missing piece of the puzzle’’ and Muller wanted to know how early sleep disruption began.
‘‘Unfortunately, the research shows they start very early in life, and that’s not fair. It potentially puts young children at a disadvantage for their learning, and these children are already disadvantaged.’’
The research officer graduated on November 29 with a PhD for a study analysing the sleep of 3 and 4-year-olds, through data collected from surveys and interviews with their mothers.
International standards of sleep levels, determined by the American Institute for Sleep, recommend 3 and 4 year-olds should be getting around 10 to 13 hours’ sleep across a 24-hour period, although Muller emphasises that these guidelines are a range.
‘‘For some, nine is OK, for others, they might need 13.’’
She’s quick to say parents shouldn’t be judged for their child’s sleeping patterns; in many cases it’s out of their control.
‘‘The last thing you want is a prescriptive list of ‘what you must do XYZ’,’’ she says. ‘‘There are various ways that work for different families. We need a range of options.’’
Access to resources, even something as simple as a warm, dry house, or the ability to darken a room are out of the reach of some families.
‘‘It’s well and good to say, ‘give kids a dark room, on their own’, but at the end of the day that’s not available to everyone.’’
The Wellington-based researcher says that for many children, sleep is affected by situations that are out of their family’s control, such as shift work disruptions, access to quality bedding or differing parental routines between split parent homes.
‘‘We are more and more recognising that sleep health is not just getting enough sleep. It’s also consistently getting enough sleep and at the appropriate times,’’ she says.
Inequities in sleep health parallel what we see
‘‘We have families in this country that are really disadvantaged and that shows through, even in the sleep of children.’’ Dr Diane ‘Dee’ Muller, left
in broader aspects of child health and wellbeing.
‘‘We have families in this country that are really disadvantaged and that shows through, even in the sleep of children.’’
Muller says knowing the issues around preschoolers’ sleep is vital in terms of setting them up to succeed.
‘‘The last thing we want is kids to be
disadvantaged when they head off to school,’’ she says.
‘‘I think it’s really important within the New Zealand context, we need to understand more about what the associations are and how much New Zealand is sleeping.’’
As far as solutions go, Muller says help needs to come at a governmental level.
On a practical day-to-day level, Muller suggests that parents do reach out for support and help with their child’s sleep, much as they would with any other aspect of their health.
‘‘A number of women talked about getting health advice from professionals. Some felt supported, some had negative experiences of people trying to tell them to cry it out, or take an approach to sleep that didn’t work for their family. It put them off seeking more help in the future.’’