6 questions for the sleep researcher

Mr Hunkeler, can children sleep too little?
No. A healthy child gets the sleep it needs.
Can children cope well with sleep deficits?
Short-term deficits in any case. A study of adolescents, for example, showed that whether they slept five or nine hours over four nights had no effect on their memory and attention. The duration of deep sleep remained constant for all participants.
Sometimes children simply don't want to go to bed, which leads to unpleasant scenes.
It's a question of the norms. We have noticed that parents generally have certain expectations of their children, be it in terms of their behaviour, their school performance or their need for sleep.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
For example, they insist on a fixed sleep duration and often overestimate the child's need for sleep. But children are very different.
What does this mean in practice?
You have to adapt the bedtime to the individual's need for sleep, otherwise unpleasant scenes will occur. Misinterpretation of a child's need for sleep, a lack of daily structures and incorrect sleeping habits are the most common causes of sleep disorders in childhood.
Almost one in three children has difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Why are parents so worried?
Few parents talk about their children's sleep problems because they think it's a parenting issue. They think they are the fault of the system. This can lead to a great deal of uncertainty and worry.

Dr Peter Hunkeler
is a paediatrician FMH specialising in developmental paediatrics and senior physician at the Department of Developmental Paediatrics at the Children's Hospital Zurich.

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