Sleep is essential to a child’s cognitive and behavioural development, particularly during school-age years. But for most parents, getting a young child to sleep each night is easier said than done.  Around 20-40% of school-age children struggle to fall asleep, wake during the night, or have trouble sleeping alone.^[1]

Let’s take a look at how sleep impacts a child’s neurocognitive development – including their academic performance and social behaviour – and how you can help your child to sleep more soundly.

Benefits of sleep for children’s brain function
Between birth and adolescence, a child’s cognitive abilities develop significantly. Much of this development depends on the amount and quality of sleep they get.^[2]

Some research has suggested that preschoolers who do not sleep well may later develop problems with certain aspects of cognitive function, such as working memory and interference suppression inhibition (the ability to tune out distractions and focus on important details).^[3]

Children who do sleep well, however, are found to have better executive functioning in preschool years, including in tasks such as abstract reasoning, concept formation, and problem-solving skills. This finding supports the theory that sleep facilitates the development of frontal brain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-order cognition.^[4]

Benefits of sleep for children’s behaviour
Poor sleep has a direct impact on behavior and mood, and children with disrupted sleep patterns may find everyday social situations more difficult.^[5] Even small differences in sleep duration over just a few nights can have a negative impact on children’s daytime functioning.

Behavioral reactivity and negative interactions with classmates is shown to occur more frequently after poor sleep, along with tiredness, irritability, a short attention span, and difficulty in controlling impulses and emotions.^[6]

Many of these behaviours are also related to symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and children with ADHD are also more likely to have trouble sleeping than the general population. Some research has also shown that insufficient sleep during childhood may increase the risk for developing ADHD later in life.^[7]

Benefits of sleep for children’s memory function
A good night’s rest is essential to memory function. While this is true at any age, studies show that children who take regular naps have faster reaction times on spatial memory functioning tasks than those who do not.^[8] Further research has shown that children who get plenty of sleep each night have better memory consolidation and recall of verbal and novel words.^[9]

This is believed to be because children experience a higher amount of slow wave sleep than adults. Slow-wave sleep is the process in which newly learned representations are transferred from the hippocampal and para-hippocampal areas towards prefrontal brain areas for long term storage.^[10]

Strategies to help your child sleep better

Set a routine
When it comes to establishing healthy sleep in children, sleep experts strongly recommend a bedtime routine. A consistent, predictable sequence prior to bedtime helps a child to make the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Children with bedtime routines fall asleep more quickly and earlier, awaken less during the night, sleep for longer, and typically have fewer behavioral problems during the day.^[11]

• Reading, singing, or other forms of verbal interaction at bedtime from age three have been linked to longer sleep and stronger cognitive development by age five.^[12]
• Bathing and brushing teeth
  A warm bath before bed can help raise a child’s core body temperature, which then drops afterward and naturally encourages sleep.^[13]
• Physical contact
  Massaging, cuddling, and rocking your child to sleep supports healthy emotional regulation, a positive mood, strong parent-child bonding, and overall better sleep.^[14]

Increase their Omega 3
Emerging evidence suggests that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids – especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) – may improve sleep quality in children. Omega-3 supports melatonin regulation and helps maintain the structure of neuronal membranes, both essential for falling asleep and staying asleep.^[15]

Children with lower levels of DHA and a lower DHA:AA (arachidonic acid) ratio are more likely to have disturbed sleep.^[16]

A 2021 meta-analysis found that omega-3 supplementation is particularly beneficial for children’s sleep.^[17] Babies supplemented with omega-3 had less active sleep and better sleep-wake transition, while preschool children had more restful sleep with fewer sleep disturbances. The researchers concluded that omega-3 has clear benefits for supporting sleep in children, especially those who usually struggle to sleep well.

Omega-3 can be added to most children’s diets in foods like fatty fish, nuts, seeds, and plant oils. For picky eaters or those with allergies, a supplement may be the easiest way to increase omega-3 intake. Choose a quality product that’s independently tested and offers a high EPA ratio.

This content is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for health professional advice.

^[1] Williamson, A. A., Mindell, J. A., Hiscock, H., & Quach, J. (2019). Child sleep behaviors and sleep problems from infancy to school-age. Sleep medicine, 63, 5–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2019.05.003

^[2] Craik, F. I., & Bialystok, E. (2006). Cognition through the lifespan: mechanisms of change. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(3), 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.01.007

^[3] Nelson, T. D., Nelson, J. M., Kidwell, K. M., James, T. D., & Espy, K. A. (2015). Preschool Sleep Problems and Differential Associations With Specific Aspects of Executive Control in Early Elementary School. Developmental neuropsychology, 40(3), 167–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2015.1020946

^[4] Schlieber, M., & Han, J. (2021). The Role of Sleep in Young Children’s Development: A Review. The Journal of genetic psychology, 182(4), 205–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2021.1908218

^[5] Goodlin-Jones, B., Tang, K., Liu, J., & Anders, T. F. (2009). Sleep problems, sleepiness and daytime behavior in preschool-age children. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 50(12), 1532–1540. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02110.x

^[6] Ednick, M., Cohen, A. P., McPhail, G. L., Beebe, D., Simakajornboon, N., & Amin, R. S. (2009). A review of the effects of sleep during the first year of life on cognitive, psychomotor, and temperament development. Sleep, 32(11), 1449–1458. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/32.11.1449

^[7] Owens J. A. (2005). The ADHD and sleep conundrum: a review. Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP, 26(4), 312–322. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-200508000-00011

^[8] Ji, X., Li, J., & Liu, J. (2019). The Relationship Between Midday Napping And Neurocognitive Function in Early Adolescents. Behavioral sleep medicine, 17(5), 537–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402002.2018.1425868

^[9] Henderson, L. M., Weighall, A. R., Brown, H., & Gareth Gaskell, M. (2012). Consolidation of vocabulary is associated with sleep in children. Developmental science, 15(5), 674–687. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01172.x

^[10] Takashima, A., Petersson, K. M., Rutters, F., Tendolkar, I., Jensen, O., Zwarts, M. J., McNaughton, B. L., & Fernández, G. (2006). Declarative memory consolidation in humans: a prospective functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(3), 756–761. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507774103

^[11] Mindell, J. A., Telofski, L. S., Wiegand, B., & Kurtz, E. S. (2009). A nightly bedtime routine: impact on sleep in young children and maternal mood. Sleep, 32(5), 599–606. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/32.5.599

^[12] Hale, L., Berger, L. M., LeBourgeois, M. K., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2011). A longitudinal study of preschoolers’ language-based bedtime routines, sleep duration, and well-being. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 25(3), 423–433. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023564

^[13] Mindell, J. A., Telofski, L. S., Wiegand, B., & Kurtz, E. S. (2009). A nightly bedtime routine: impact on sleep in young children and maternal mood. Sleep, 32(5), 599–606. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/32.5.599

^[14] Mindell, J. A., & Williamson, A. A. (2018). Benefits of a bedtime routine in young children: Sleep, development, and beyond. Sleep medicine reviews, 40, 93–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2017.10.007

^[15] Catalá A. (2010). The function of very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in the pineal gland. Biochimica et biophysica acta, 1801(2), 95–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbalip.2009.10.010

^[16] Montgomery, P., Burton, J. R., Sewell, R. P., Spreckelsen, T. F., & Richardson, A. J. (2014). Fatty acids and sleep in UK children: subjective and pilot objective sleep results from the DOLAB study–a randomized controlled trial. Journal of sleep research, 23(4), 364–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12135

^[17] Dai, Y., & Liu, J. (2021). Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid and sleep: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and longitudinal studies. Nutrition reviews, 79(8), 847–868. https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuaa103