How much sleep do children need?

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How much sleep do children need?

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Children need to sleep about 10 to 13 hours a night. A newborn, is good… we hope that we can achieve a 10 to 12 hour night. A child 2 to 6 years of age, we would like 11 to 13. And anything beyond 6 years of age – and that includes adolescents and young teenagers – we’d like to continue to maintain 10 to 12 hours of sleep a night, which is a lofty goal, a lofty goal, but I think… hopefully, it’s achievable and children school performance will benefit form it. But so, the question really isn’t how much do we need to sleep at night so much as it is how much do we need to nap during the day? Newborns are going to nap sporadically throughout the day. Somewhere around 4 to 6 months of age, they’re going to fall into a 2 nap a day pattern, so they have a morning nap of 1 to 2 hours and then an afternoon nap of around 2 hours. And then around 18 months of age that will turn into on nap a day, so they maintain their afternoon nap. And somewhere between 3 to 5 years of age, they stop napping during the day. Every child is an individual. All of us… some of us sleep better than others and children are no different. But those are some general guidelines.

Watch Video: How much sleep do children need? by Lawrence Kagan, MD, ...

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Lawrence Kagan, MD

Pediatrician

Lawrence Kagan, MD, FAAP, is a UCLA honors graduate, with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. He received medical training at USC Keck School of Medicine, and completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In addition to passionately studying neonatal, general pediatric and adolescent medicine at CHLA, he had the opportunity to train under some of the greatest minds in subspecialty pediatrics, diagnosing and managing the rarest and most complicated childhood ailments. Prior to opening Westside Pediatrics, he worked as an attending physician at the CHLA Emergency Department as well as at Cedars Sinai Urgent Care. Dr. Kagan is a native of Los Angeles and is happily married with two children.

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