Many parents longingly remember the days when our children took a nap, not only because of that lapse of tranquility in which, perhaps, we could even take a nod. Also because children generally feel very good: today we are going to discover seven benefits of napping in children.
Napping has important benefits for child development, so it is a habit that should be encouraged. Children undoubtedly after rest are better and there are studies that have investigated what happens to our brain and our body when we take a nap, especially in the smallest ones that are in full development.
Naps, very necessary for babies ... and children
Newborns spend most of the day sleeping (instead, probably at night it seems that we do not sleep so much ...). Before six months they need to sleep approximately 16 to 20 hours each day, it is impossible for all that time to be at night, so there will be daytime naps. After that time is reduced. Before the first year the baby needs at least two daily naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
When they grow, between one and two years it is likely that some of the previous naps will be suppressed, but little by little, paying attention to the biological cycles, it will be the morning nap that disappears more easily. They tend to continue sleeping in the afternoon nap, first longer and as the months go by you will see that the time is reduced.
And, although their sleep needs make it recommended that children take an afternoon nap as a routine until they are five years old, we know that this is not always the case, good for the child (many are incapable and do not want to take a nap) , well because they enter the school and there they leave this habit (although it costs them, and for that reason, along with other reasons, probably also when entering the school they are more irritable and tired).
Anyway, there is no unique pattern and each child is a world, some will be enough with half an hour to "regain strength" and others will take a two-hour nap. The more they grow, the long naps can influence the time to go to sleep at night, but as a child you will see that it does not affect too much and they continue to sleep "at their time" (if the nap time is not left for too late of course). There are even children who, if they don't take a nap, will get more upset and tense at night and it will cost them more to fall asleep (as if they "spent" their time).
Nor is there a unique pattern in the way of taking a nap, but we must ensure that it is more or less at the same time, that the child is comfortable and relaxed, in a quiet environment but if it is in his room do not leave a darkness or a total silence ... This creates the ideal environment to rest.
But, What does the nap have that makes it so recommended?
Seven benefits of napping in children
The nap facilitates the recovery of physical energy. Babies may not wear so much wear, but as soon as a few months pass they do not stop exploring and moving. This eliminates the accumulated fatigue and are ready to continue ...
They will sleep better at night. When resting in the middle of the afternoon, it is not time to sleep at night with excessive exhaustion that alters the child and has difficulty sleeping at night. As we have indicated before, the condition for this to "work" is that you do not sleep too late (or do not take an excessively long nap).
The psychic energy is also recovered, eliminating the tension, with which most children will get up in a good mood (it may take a while to finish waking up) and ready to face a new part of the day.
Napping reduces children's hyperactivity and anxiety, according to corroborate different studies. Not taking a nap in childhood is associated with more impulsive behavior and an increased risk of depression or night terrors.
There are studies that have proven that sleep improves the consolidation of declarative memory, responsible for evoking data consciously and memories in children between six months and a year. Short-term memory, that is, for the baby to retain what he has learned, is also benefited by the habit of taking a nap.
Other research indicates that the nap favors children's abstract learning and this helps linguistic comprehension and prediction, that is, the ability to recognize new words and more complex structures such as phrases ...
All of the above contributes to napping helps improve the learning of children who go to kindergarten. The naps that are taken during the day young children in the classroom support their learning and these perform the vsiual and spatial tasks better than other children who do not enjoy that time of sleep. According to some research, a small loss of sleep time in a prolonged way in the beginning of childhood is related to a worse school performance and little sleep during the first four years multiplies the risk of language delay. Likewise, a sleepless night will have obvious consequences: the capacity to retain new data is reduced by almost 40%.
Despite these advantages of taking a nap, as we have said, there will be children who stop sleeping on their own and we cannot force them, since then it loses its meaning.
Definitely, all the benefits that nap brings to children It makes us wonder, doesn't this habit "take off" too soon? Shouldn't young children, at school, be given a break time so they could sleep? In our school, this was done at the age of three, but I don't think it's usual. And surely more than one would have thanked him at the age of five and five!
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More information | Kidshealth
In Babies and more | How babies should nap, Benefits of napping in children, When the child does not want to take the party
