GENEROUS HOURS OF SLEEP SHOULD
BE ALLOWED
While moderate mental work does not in the healthy grown person necessitate an increase in the amount of sleep, the child at school, constantly using his brain in the accumulation of new ideas, needs an even more generous proportion of sleep than if his brain were not so occupied. Again, if the child shows any signs of nervousness, he ought to be allowed to sleep a little longer than the more stolid non-temperamental child. The following is the average duration of sleep required at different ages:
| 4 | years of age | 12 | hours | |
| 7 | years of age | 11 | hours | |
| 9 | years of age | 10 | 1⁄2 | hours |
| 14 | years of age | 10 | hours | |
| 17 | years of age | 9 | hours |
Up to the approach of puberty (the change from childhood to adult life) a child may well be allowed to sleep a little later in the morning in the winter than in summer. Again, if as is frequently the case, he should suddenly commence to grow in height very rapidly an extra hour or half-hour in bed may be of the greatest service in weathering the strain of the rapid growth.
PRECAUTIONS TO PREVENT
SLEEPLESSNESS
Insomnia is sometimes very troublesome in young children, demanding most painstaking treatment. Most important in encouraging the habit of going to sleep immediately on being put to bed is regularity in the hour of bedtime. Unless the child is put into bed at a certain fixed hour with clock-like regularity, the habit of getting sleepy (which is such an important factor in going to sleep) cannot be normally developed.
Sometimes a subdued, shaded light will sooth a nervous child’s excited brain and so induce sleep. A child who wakes in terror in a pitchdark room may for years be nervous about going to bed in the dark. Any attempt to stamp out this tendency to nervousness by refusing a comforting glimmer of light in the room may bring on a habit of sleeplessness on first going to bed which may be difficult to eradicate. Sometimes a softly-ticking clock, by affording a sense of companionship, encourages the child to drop off to sleep.
MENTAL QUIETUDE AND
GOOD VENTILATION
Another factor in encouraging sleep is a quiet mental state, which is best brought about by the strict avoidance of all exciting games or other mental activities for at least an hour before bedtime. School lessons prepared in the evening are a fertile source of insomnia in children. The brain, keyed up to working at full pitch, cannot quiet down at its owner’s wish, and its unwonted activity may banish sleep for an hour or more.
While free ventilation is essential in the child’s sleeping-room, it should never be forgotten that the young are more susceptible to cold than are grown people, and have not the same power of generating extra body heat to replace any undue loss of warmth from exposure to outside cold. The temperature of the child’s bedroom, therefore, should be kept between 55° and 60° F. If below this, a general feeling of chilliness, and in particular of cold feet, may be the cause of sleeplessness.