Resetting Your Child's Sleep Routine for the New School Year

This is a guest post by Dr. Scott Krugman, vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics at The Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai.

Back-to-school time means back to routines and schedules for many families. The long summer break without hectic schedules and early school hours allows parents to loosen up on sleep and awake times for children.

Many children, especially teenagers and pre-teens, naturally gravitate to later sleep and awake times in the summer. Unfortunately, this sleep pattern quickly collides with an immovable barrier - school. School start times are notoriously unkind to kids-especially teenagers-who like to go to bed late. Because of this, teenagers are at risk for multiple problems, including daytime sleepiness, poor school performance, tardiness and school absence.

So what can parents do to help their child adjust back to a school year sleep pattern? The first answer is to get back on a schedule sooner rather than later. Moving up your child's awake time an hour earlier a day every few days, ideally right before the start of the new school year, helps start the process of resetting their sleep cycle. Keeping the child busy during the day and eliminating naps during this transition time can also help. After a week or two, your child should be transitioned back to the school time schedule.

What is the ideal schedule, you ask? It depends on how old your child is. The easiest way to determine the appropriate schedule is to subtract the total amount of needed sleep time from the hour your child has to be up for school. For example, if your child needs to wake up at 7 a.m. and needs nine hours of sleep, he or she should be asleep by 10 p.m.

Guidelines from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommend these sleep hours per 24-hour period according to age group:

• Infants (4 to 12 months): 12 to 16 hours (including naps)
• Toddlers (1 to 2 years): 11 to 14 hours (including naps)
• Preschoolers (3 to 5 years): 10 to 13 hours (including naps)
• Gradeschoolers (6 to 12 years): 9 to 12 hours
• Teens (13 to 18 years): 8 to 10 hours

If your child is unable to reset their sleep schedule and remains very tired during the school day or is missing early classes, make sure you notify your child's doctor. Some children can develop circadian rhythm disturbances which may require further evaluation or treatment (like melatonin). Additionally, it's important to make sure that your child doesn't have another sleep disorder like obstructive sleep apnea or narcolepsy. A sleep study can help diagnose those conditions.