title: Children's sleep needs: is there sufficient evidence to recommend optimal sleep for children?
abstract: It is widely recognized that sleep is important for children's health and well-being and that short sleep duration is associated with a wide range of negative health outcomes. Recently, there has been much interest in whether or not there are sufficient data to support the specific recommendations made for how much sleep children need. In this article we explore concepts related to children's sleep need, discuss the theory, rationale, and empirical evidence for contemporary sleep recommendations, and outline future research directions for sleep recommendations. If sleep is to be treated as a therapeutic intervention, then consensus guidelines, statements, and evidence-based best-practice documents are needed to underpin sleep recommendations for children.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. matla005@mymail.unisa.edu.au
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Matricciani
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Blunden
authors.forename: Gabrielle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rigney
authors.forename: Marie T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Tim S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Olds
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D012890:Sleep; D013995:Time
keywords: Adolescents; children; need; recommendations; sleep
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