Study Links Bedtime Rules to Better Skills in Preschool Children

08 June 2010

Allysa Adams of reads to her daughter Andie before bedtime in this 2007 file photo

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Parents know a nightly bedtime is not always easy to enforce. But researchers say bedtime rules may improve a child's development.

A new study found better results in four-year-olds who go to bed around the same time every night and sleep at least eleven hours. Getting less than that was linked to lower abilities in language, reading and early math skills.

Researchers at SRI International in California did the study. It involved about eight thousand preschool children whose parents took part in government research on early childhood.

The parents answered questions by telephone at nine months and again at four years. The amount of sleep was based on their reporting of a child's usual bedtime and wake time. These were not independently confirmed.

SRI policy researcher Erika Gaylor says doctors can easily try to get parents to set regular bedtimes. And at bedtime she urges parents to follow routines like reading books or telling stories to their children.

For most measures of development, the study found that an earlier bedtime was also a predictor of higher scores.

Last August, a study in the journal Sleep Medicine said children who go to bed after nine o'clock took longer to fall asleep and slept less. The study found that children also got less sleep if they did not have bedtime routines.