PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — While many parents assume that putting a child to bed means they will quickly be asleep, a new study from researchers at Brown University found that’s often not the case.
The study, published in Frontiers in Pediatrics, tracked the sleep patterns of 102 elementary school children, over the course of a week. While 83% of parents believed their child was sleeping the right amount, sleep trackers showed that only 14% of the children met national sleep guidelines. The findings add to growing concerns that American children aren’t getting the sleep they need.
“What parents often don’t see is how long it takes for kids to fall asleep or how often they wake up during the night,” said Diana S. Grigsby-Toussaint, the study’s senior author and an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health.
To better understand what happens after the lights turn off, the researchers used wrist-worn accelerometers to track children’s bedtimes, how long it took them to fall asleep, how often they woke up and how much time they spent sleeping. Parents filled out surveys and daily sleep diaries. The goal was to see how well parents’ perceptions matched up with their children’s realities, Grigsby-Toussaint said.
