Patterns: Heavy Burden for Infants Who Lack Sleep

Infants who do not get enough sleep may have an increased risk for being overweight in childhood, a new study suggests.

Researchers recorded the sleep habits of 915 children at ages 6 months, 1 year and 2 years, using questionnaires and in-person interviews. At each visit, they recorded the infants’ length and weight and had parents report on the number of hours their children watched television or videos.

The study, published on Monday in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that the more sleep infants got, the less likely they were to be overweight at age 3. Infants who slept less than 12 hours a day had double the risk of being overweight compared with children who slept more, and the effect was especially apparent in children who also watched more than two hours of television a day.

The relationship held after adjusting for birth weight, the mother’s age and body mass, breast feeding duration and other variables. The authors say this is the first study to report an association between infant sleep time and children’s being overweight.

What’s a parent to do? “Most important is to practice good sleep hygiene techniques,” said Dr. Elsie M. Taveras, the lead author and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard, who is herself the mother of an infant and a toddler. “No TV in the bedroom, no caffeinated drinks and so on. Getting a good night’s sleep is not just to be at our best the next day; it’s really to assure good health.”