Regular bedtime hours help facilitate children's brain maturation and good behavior

[caption id="attachment_5407" align="alignleft" width="300"] Children sleeping, something difficult to do with sleep apnea[/caption]

Marsha Hunt---"We know that early child development has profound influences on health and wellbeing across the life course. It follows that disruptions to sleep, especially if they occur at key times in development, could have important lifelong impacts on health."

Researchers from the University College of London have established that children who don't go to bed at regular times may end up having behavioral problems.  This is because the natural body rhythms are disrupted, causing sleep deprivation that can undermine brain maturation.

Professor Yvonne Kelly (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), goes on to say: "Not having fixed bedtimes, accompanied by a constant sense of flux, induces a state of body and mind akin to jet lag and this matters for healthy development and daily functioning."

The research results came from studying 20,000 children in the United Kingdom when the children were at ages three, five and seven years.  The researchers examined children's behavioral patterns and the times they went to bed, finding that without a regular bedtime children's behavioral scores worsened so they had conduct problems, problems with peers and emotional difficulties.

Irregular bedtimes were most common at the age of three, when around one in five children went to bed at different times.  Researchers also found that establishing a regular schedule can also improve children's behavior.

This research corresponds with other information that has been found about the importance of sleep, including in the formative years of childhood.   In fact researchers in another study found that fixing children's sleep problems can also improve their behavior.

The present findings also reinforce additional information about mental health and sleep patterns, as it has also been found that sleep deprivation can negatively impact behavior, motor performance and thinking.

It's important to start a child off well with good habits, including those referencing sleep, for the betterment of a child's performance in early life that can continue into adulthood.