Active children sleep better

Experts from Australia and New Zealand say exercise plays an important role in the sleeping habits of children and children who do no exercise take longer to fall asleep.

The researchers from Monash University in Melbourne and the University of Auckland carried out a study which examined the factors affecting sleep habits and found for every hour a youngster is inactive, it takes an extra three minutes for them to fall asleep.

The study involved 519 children born in 1996 and 1997 and followed up when they were seven - the children were given activity monitors to wear in order to determine those who had sedentary lifestyles and those who engaged in moderate or vigorous activity.

The researchers say most children fell asleep within 40 minutes, with an average of 26 minutes, but some children took almost three hours and the children who did more exercise fell asleep faster, while those with sedentary lifestyles took longer to fall asleep.

The researchers say the children who fell asleep faster also tended to sleep for longer, suggesting that this is possibly "a marker for good sleepers."

The researchers note that short sleep duration is associated with obesity and lower cognitive performance, and they say a community emphasis on the importance of promoting healthy sleep in children is vitally important.

They say the research emphasises the importance of physical activity for children, not only for fitness, cardiovascular health and weight control, but also for sleep.

The researchers also found that going to sleep after 9pm and watching TV did not have any significant effect on the results.

In other research it has been revealed that 16% of parents of school-age children say their child has difficulty falling asleep and experts say this difficulty may promote poor sleep habits such as watching TV in bed or later bedtimes - this is important because poor sleep patterns in childhood have also been associated with poorer school performance.

The research is published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.