Medical Guidance/Professor Xu Zhengli, Director of Pediatrics of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hospital of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine, Southern Medical University
Preschool babies have restless sleep, night terrors, nightmares, snoring, frequent waking up at night, difficulty in falling asleep... When these problems are mentioned, mothers have more or less resonance. Poor sleep will affect the baby's growth and development. How to let the growing preschool children return to the enviable "baby like sleep"? Guangzhou Daily Health has invited Xu Zhengli, an expert in pediatrics of traditional Chinese medicine from the Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine Hospital of Southern Medical University, to help you.
Children who cannot sleep well are physically and mentally impaired
Xu Zhengli said that children's sleep has a great impact on their growth. Compared with children without sleep problems, children who have frequent sleep problems (such as difficulty in getting into sleep or lack of sleep time) are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, aggressive behavior, and even alcohol and drug abuse when they enter adolescence and even adulthood. Because the growth hormone needed for children's physical growth can only reach the highest secretion level in sleep, poor sleep will also cause children's memory to be weakened, affect children's cognitive function, cause fatigue, inattention, irritability, impulsivity and other symptoms, and even affect children's immune function. In addition, studies have shown that insufficient sleep can cause endocrine and metabolic system disorders, leading to obesity.
Five Ways to Regulate Your Baby's Sleep Quality
1。 Develop regular sleep time to ensure adequate sleep. According to the physiological characteristics of preschool children, experts believe that the daily sleep time of preschool children should be more than 11 hours, including 1~2 hours of nap. Don't let your child watch TV for a long time before going to bed. From 8:00 to 9:00 in the evening, let the child get ready for bed.
2。 Arrange dinner reasonably. Don't overeat, avoid eating chocolate, drinking tea, etc. It is light and less oily to avoid indigestion and difficulty in sleeping.
3。 Don't do strenuous exercise before going to bed. The exercise should be arranged in the daytime, at least 2 hours before sleep, to create a relaxed and comfortable environment for the child as far as possible, avoid fighting, and prevent the child's heart rate from being too fast before sleep.
4。 Pay attention to appease children's emotions. Children's nightmares and nightmares are mostly caused by being frightened in the daytime. When children first arrive at a strange place, such as from home to kindergarten, they will feel lonely and afraid. Parents can accompany children properly a few days before they enter the kindergarten until they get to know their teachers and classmates. Some children are afraid of sleeping and having nightmares because they are afraid of the dark. Parents can play soothing music to the baby before going to bed, hug and accompany the baby to sleep before leaving.
5。 From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, sleep disorders can be caused by cold due to spleen deficiency, accumulated heat in heart meridians, heart kidney disjunction and fright. The corresponding prescriptions are used for syndrome differentiation and treatment. The decoction can be taken internally, and the child massage can be used externally.
Note: Snoring is not good sleep
Xu Zhengli reminds parents that children snoring is not a sound sleep, it may be a symptom. Many children snore in sleep, and even have obstructive sleep apnea, which is caused by the children's stuffy nose, cold, tonsil or adenoid hypertrophy; Long term obstructive sleep apnea can cause hypoxia due to airway obstruction, resulting in hypercapnia, increased pressure of pulmonary artery and systemic artery, and increased myocardial burden, which will affect the intellectual development of preschool children in serious cases. In view of this phenomenon, parents should take their children to the hospital in time to find out the causes and effectively treat them.
Preschool children are in the stage of learning and living in the kindergarten. There is a clear relationship between the afternoon nap in the kindergarten during the day and the sleep at home at night. Parents should often communicate with kindergarten teachers about their children's sleep status and behavior. Once you find that your child has problems with sleep and behavior, you should consult a child health care doctor for help in a timely manner.
In short, early detection and early intervention can effectively improve children's sleep quality and ensure their healthy growth by establishing regular sleep, providing psychological counseling for children, eliminating incentives, adopting reasonable diet, and taking appropriate exercise.
Article/Guangzhou Daily All media reporter Zhou Jieying Correspondent Wu Jiayi
