Prevalence of parent-reported sleep disorders is 10 percent during first three years of life
THURSDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- For young children, the overall prevalence of parent-reported sleep problems is 10 percent, and remains stable during the first three years of life, according to a study published online Jan. 4 in Pediatrics.
Kelly C. Byars, Psy.D., from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and colleagues investigated the prevalence, patterns, and persistence of parent-reported sleep problems during the first three years of life in 359 mother/child pairs. Mothers were administered sleep questionnaires when their children were 6, 12, 24, and 36 months old. Eight specific sleep outcome domains, and parent's response to a nonspecific query about the presence/absence of a sleep problem were the sleep variables analyzed.
The investigators found that, at all assessment intervals, the prevalence of a parent-reported sleep problem was 10 percent. During infancy and early toddlerhood (6 to 24 months), night wakings and shorter sleep duration correlated with a parent-reported sleep problem. In later developmental periods (24 to 36 months), nightmares and restless sleep were associated with a parent-reported sleep problem. Throughout the study period, prolonged sleep latency correlated with a parent-reported sleep problem. There were no correlations seen for sleep location, napping, and snoring with parent-reported sleep problems. Sleep problems in the third year of life were noted in 21 and 6 percent of the children with and without sleep problems in infancy, respectively.
"Ten percent of children are reported to have a sleep problem at any given point during early childhood, and these problems persist in a significant minority of children throughout early development," the authors write.
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