Early bedtime makes children smarter
A regular sleep routine for 4-year-olds can boost academic performance, researchers find
Children with a regular bedtime do better at school, scientists from the independent American research institute SRI International have said.
Children with a set time for bed did better at languages, maths and reading than children who had varied bedtimes. The earlier the bedtime, the better their academic performance, too. And those who got less than 11 hours of sleep each night also fell behind.
"Getting parents to set bedtime routines can be an important way to make a significant impact on children's emergent literacy and language skills,” said Dr Erika Gaylor, who headed up the study of 8,000 children aged 4.
This isn’t the first study to point to the importance of an early bedtime – last year, a piece published in Sleep Medicine suggested that children who headed to bed after 9pm too longer to nod off, and also got less sleep, reports the Telegraph.
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