Lack of sleep is hurting Canada’s kids — and parents are drugging them to try to help out, new study shows.
Photograph by: Arlen Redekop , PROVINCE
A surprising new Canadian study suggests 70 per cent of children have trouble settling into what should come naturally — sleep.
And further, about 30 per cent of parents struggling with this problem give their kids over-the-counter medications such as melatonin, a so-called “magic pill” with unknown long-term effects.
University of B.C. researcher and nursing school professor Wendy Hall — who has studied child sleep for 10 years — says she wasn’t surprised by the results of the study.
“I think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Hall said. “We have lots of studies linking (child sleep deprivation) to difficulty learning, behavioural problems, and even increased risk of obesity.”
The new study, which was presented at the Canadian Paediatric Society’s conference in June, examined 350 children brought to a pediatric emergency department for issues other than sleep deprivation. The study found 80 per cent of the children with underlying medical conditions had trouble sleeping, and 70 per cent of the otherwise healthy children reported sleep problems.
About one-third of the parents of children with sleep problems reported giving them sleep-aids like antihistamines and painkillers, while half the parents chose the sleep hormone melatonin.
The new study did not ask why children are having trouble sleeping. But many researchers have concluded that increased exposure to personal electronic devices is interfering with the onset of sleep by inhibiting melatonin, which is sent flowing to the brain at night when lights start to dim.
“Melatonin is an important hormone, and it is actually inhibited when we are exposed to light,” Hall said.
“When you look at the amount of screen time people have, it interferes with sleep because you interfere with your natural secretion of melatonin. So you can see where parents would then be inclined to give their children melatonin supplements.”
One concern about melatonin supplements is that their production is not highly regulated.
Another is that researchers do not know how the use of melatonin supplements will affect children after years of use, Hall said. A European study of the short-term effects of melatonin use found that children given over-the-counter melatonin experienced redness of skin, red eyes and dizziness.
“Parents are looking for silver-bullet solutions,” Hall said. “But nothing in life is free. If you are given melatonin, there will be some side effects.”
Michelle Ferreri, an Ontario-based parenting blogger, has stepped into the sleep-time debate with a frank disclosure of her own family’s experiences. Ferreri said her eight-year-old son Giorgio had struggled to settle into sleep since he was a toddler and his sleep deprivation was impacting his daytime activities. The family tried sleep therapist’s recommendations, but nothing worked. Giorgio was also diagnosed with an anxiety condition.
Ferreri said she finally decided to try melatonin. It worked like magic, she said, and things have improved for Giorgio and the whole family.
Ferreri said she is not surprised that the study showed so many children have problems with sleep, and many parents are using melatonin.
“It works well, and it works quickly,” she said. “I am concerned if there is long term effects because I don’t want to be giving my kid something that is dangerous. But you still have to look at the risk-reward. My naturopath told me if your body needs melatonin you will respond to it, and if you don’t, it won’t.”
Hall said there is discussion among doctors in Canada who believe Attention Hyperactivity Disorder is being highly misdiagnosed in children who are actually experiencing chronic sleep deprivation.
Meanwhile a 2015 Australian study has shown that parents struggling with kids who had ADHD have used melatonin to help with sleep.
Melatonin was found to reduce the time it took for children to fall asleep, but had no positive effect on ADHD symptoms.
In the study, researchers found that for children with ADHD and sleep problems, “brief and tailored” clinical sleep coaching sessions not only improved the children’s sleep but also sustainably improved “the severity of ADHD symptoms, behaviour, daily functioning, quality of life, and working memory.”
The common sense sleep improvement habits used in the Australian study are exactly the type of “interventions” that Hall prescribes for otherwise healthy children who suffer poor sleep.
While not commenting on the Australian study or potential links between treatment for ADHD and child sleep deprivation, Hall said that she believes generally in society we tend to resort to medications too quickly, before making the behavioural changes.
To that end, Hall and a number of her colleagues across Canada will be recruiting families to take part in a behavioural sleep improvement clinic starting in January, with the goal of creating an online child-sleep improvement resource for parents.
How to help your kids sleep
Here are sleep-improvement tips from University of B.C. nursing school Prof. Wendy Hall
1. Have a regular bedtime. Children who fall asleep before 9 p.m. tend to fall asleep faster and for longer and deeper durations.
2. Have a familiar routine for settling the child in before bedtime. No more than 20 minutes is needed.
3. Make stories a part of bedtime, and use traditional paper books, not screen devices.
4. Have children fall asleep in their own beds rather than on the sofa or in their parents’ bed. If children wake up in a different location from where they fell asleep, they are more likely to be startled and fully wakened, instead of resettling.
5. Avoid caffeine (chocolate bars, chocolate milk, soft drinks) for hours before bedtime.
6. Avoid screen time since videos and computers tend to stimulate rather than calm.
7. Playing video games for older adolescents can tend to excite and activate stress hormones, which will counter the calming work of natural melatonin secretions.
— Sam Cooper
