Kids with insomnia often become adults who can’t sleep

Kids with insomnia often become adults who can’t sleep


Whether it’s worries about monsters in the closet or just a habit of getting hyper at bedtime, kids with insomnia symptoms often become teens — and later, adults — with sleeping woes.

Compared with children who sleep well, those with insomnia are likely to see it persist in early adulthood.

The Penn State University researchers’ findings come from the first study to track childhood insomnia into adulthood.

The study, which began in the year 2000, looked at the sleep habits of kids ages 5 to 12. It involved more than 500 children, and researchers checked in with participants when they were roughly 16 years old and again at about age 24.

The children participated in sleep-lab studies in which doctors recorded their brain waves and measured blood-oxygen levels, heart rates and breathing patterns.

Of the families whose children had insomnia symptoms — defined as moderate-to-severe difficulties going to sleep or staying asleep — the researchers found that 43% continued to suffer into adulthood.

Although about 27% of kids with insomnia symptoms no longer had them by the time they were teens, about 19% had a waxing-and-waning pattern of poor sleep into adulthood.

Among the study’s good sleepers, about 15% developed insomnia in the transition to adolescence and adulthood, and another 21% developed insomnia as adults.

Researchers said their key finding is that childhood sleep problems are far more likely to persist over time than previously believed. Parents should not expect that childhood sleep troubles will simply vanish with age.

And with sleep being key to good health and academic and athletic performance, nipping insomnia in the bud must be more than a pipe dream.

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