Is Right Height Increasing When Children Sleep?

Medical Video: Science Explains How Much Sleep You Need Depending on Your Age

Drinking milk before going to bed said he could support the growth of height when the child slept. Is this really just a myth? Many factors affect a child's height, such as heredity, nutritional status, lifestyle, and others. Maybe sleep can be one of the factors that can affect the growth of height in children.

During sleep, the organs in our body work and hormones are also released to support the workings of organs. Maybe this hormone is the main key why sleep can support a child's growth. To find out more, let's look at the following review.

How sleep can affect a child's height?

Growth is a complex process that requires several hormones. One of the hormones that affect the growth of a child's height is growth hormone because this hormone stimulates biological processes in the blood, organs, muscles, and bones needed to increase height. Some things that affect the work of growth hormones are nutrition, stress, and exercise, and sleep.

Growth hormone is released by the pituitary gland in the brain into the bloodstream and released throughout the day, but the highest release period is during sleep, not long after the child sleeps well. This means that short sleep duration or disturbances during sleep can affect the release of growth hormones because we need time to achieve deeper sleep.

A 1968 study by Takahashi showed that delayed nighttime sleep and a restful night's sleep or frequent wakefulness could inhibit the peak release from growth hormone. Another study published in the 2010 journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery explained that children with growth hormone deficiency were associated with poor sleep quality and shorter height.

Therefore, children should get enough night's sleep to maximize the release of growth hormones that support the addition of a child's height. If just one night the child does not get good quality sleep may not inhibit growth, but if this often happens almost every day it might affect the growth of children.

How long should the child sleep?

Adequate sleep is an important thing for children to get because during sleep the body can restore energy to establish connections in the brain. Insufficient sleep duration can cause children to experience growth problems, such as stunted growth in height and can result in children being short or stunting. Short sleep duration or lack of sleep can cause children to fail to produce maximum growth hormone during sleep, so that growth in height during sleep does not work optimally.

Sleep deprivation can also cause a condition of growth hormone deficiency which can affect the work of the heart, lungs, and immune system. The study published in the journal Neuroendocrinology in 2011 showed that children who had a lack of growth hormone had short sleep duration and poor sleep quality compared to children of the same age who had normal growth.

The duration of sleep needed by a child varies depending on his age. Based on the National Sleep Foundation, the duration of sleep needed by infants to adolescents is:

Newborns aged 0-3 months need a duration of sleep of around 14-17 hours
Babies aged 4-11 months need a duration of sleep of around 12-15 hours
Children aged 1-2 years need sleep duration of about 11-14 hours
Children aged 3-5 years need a duration of sleep of around 10-13 hours
Children aged 6-13 years need a duration of sleep of around 9-11 hours
Teenagers aged 14-17 years need a sleep duration of about 8-10 hours

How do you get your child to sleep well?

Growth hormone can be released in the highest amount when the child sleeps well. By making the child sleep well, you are supporting the growth of the child. To help children sleep well in sufficient duration, you as a parent can do:

Apply hours of sleep for children every day. School children should sleep at 8 or 9 at night. Apply the same thing even on weekends. Erratic sleep hours can make a child's sleep habits worse.
Accompany the child before going to bed, can be done by talking to children, singing lullabies, or reading stories before going to bed. And, do not invite children to do activities before going to bed. Make sure the child is in a comfortable condition before going to bed.
Make sure the child sleeps in a comfortable room, preferably in the condition of the lights being turned off and the atmosphere is calm.
Do not place the television or computer in a child's room.

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