DECATUR, Ala. — For some kids, it can be a struggle to rise and shine when that alarm goes off, specially after a nice summer break, and getting enough sleep can be critical for a child to be successful in school.
Some words of advice from Decatur City Schools Superintendent Michael Douglas. "So I go back to, spend those first two or three weeks of school working on routines and procedures. We've got to get our kids into routines and procedures, a consistent bedtime for parents."
Bradley Hospital Director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab Mary Carskadon agrees. "It really is key to a lot of things that go on in kids' lives that we do whatever we can to help protect their sleep. There's nothing much more important for children than having a bedtime routine and getting adequate sleep and rest. The less sleep they have, the more prone they are to doing risk taking activities or to having accidents."
And one thing that's usually not taught is that one of the things that gets worse if you haven't had enough sleep for our athletes is reaction time gets significantly slower. Carskadon says, "And almost every sport, whether it's, you know, hockey or baseball, football, you know, ultimate frisbee, swimming, you know, those few hundredths of a second can make a difference between a hit and a miss."
So exactly what bedtime is the right bedtime, or is there a such thing? Vanderbilt University Medical Center Director of the Sleep Division Beth Malow says, "So Igo by the hours rather than the right that time because the right bedtime is going to be affected by things like when does your child need to get up for school? I would say aim for 9 to 11 hours. For most school age kids, teenagers, maybe eight and a half to nine and a half hours is ideal."