Sleep affects children's height

1. Sleep shows children's health

There are 5 main factors that affect children's height development: nutrition, exercise, sleep, genetics, and environment.

We often think that genetics is the biggest factor that determines height development. However, that is not true, genetics only affects 20%, nutrition affects about 40%, sleep and exercise affect 40% of a child's height development.

Sleep is very important for children's height development. Sleep reflects the health of children. Only when children are healthy can they sleep well and vice versa, good sleep will make children healthy both physically and mentally.

Children who get enough sleep will not be irritable and will play well. For children and teenagers, getting enough sleep will help them concentrate better and have better memory. If they do not get enough sleep, older children will be tired, have poor concentration and memory will also be affected.

If a child has rickets, he or she will often startle when sleeping. If the child has acute illnesses, he or she will also not sleep well: such as dermatitis causing itching, respiratory diseases causing phlegm causing difficulty breathing...

Genetic factors only affect 20% of children's height development.

2. Deep sleep and adequate sleep help children grow taller

The growth of height as well as the whole body of children is affected by the growth hormone GH. This hormone is a very small gland in the brain. This growth hormone will be secreted the most at night. Therefore, it is necessary to make the most of this time.

There are 3 things to note about sleep:

- The first is the total number of hours of sleep per day. The amount of sleep per day depends on the age of the child and will gradually decrease as the child grows older. Adults only sleep 7 to 8 hours per day. Older people only sleep about 5 to 6 hours per day. But children will sleep more.

- The second is the depth of sleep. According to many studies, during the period from 11pm to 1am and from 4am to 5am, if the baby sleeps deeply, there will be many chemical mechanisms in the brain that cause low waves to stimulate the secretion of growth hormone.

- The third is bedtime, especially bedtime at night. Children under 5 years old should go to bed before 9pm. Children from 5 to 10 years old should go to bed before 9:30pm. Children from 10 to 16 years old should go to bed before 10pm.

3. How to help children sleep deeply?

There are many factors that affect children's sleep.

Nutrition affects the child's sleep. If the child is under 4 months old, he/she still needs to eat at night, especially for premature babies and malnourished children who need to eat at night. Every 2 to 2 hours and 30 minutes, the child needs to be breastfed once to avoid hypoglycemia.

Children 4 months and older, if not malnourished, not sick and developing normally, can sleep through the night without needing to eat at night.

If the baby is over 4 months old and is in normal health and eats enough nutrients every day, try to stop feeding the baby at night so that the baby can sleep deeply and continuously without interruption. Because when eating, the baby will wake up and not sleep deeply, and the mother will also wake up and be tired. Therefore, the health of both mother and child will be affected.

In addition, the child's need for energy and nutrition at night is not much and is lower than during the day. Therefore, there is no need to force children over 4 months old to eat at night.

However, for children over 4 months old who eat little, they still need to be fed even at night because if they are hungry, they can have hypoglycemia.

Do not let children use electronic devices before going to bed because the light from mobile devices also prevents the brain from resting, leading to children not getting enough sleep and poor sleep quality.

If you want to have deep sleep, you need to create the most quiet conditions, suitable environment, temperature, humidity, not too hot, not too humid or dry; light is not too bright or glaring.

Note, do not let children use electronic devices before going to bed because the blue wavelengths from smartphones and other devices will prevent the production of hormones that help children sleep easily. At the same time, the light from mobile devices also prevents the brain from resting, leading to children not getting enough sleep and poor sleep quality.