Sleeping Angels

How children's sleep affects their health and well being.

Dennis Rosen, M.D. is a pediatric sleep specialist who practices at Children's Hospital Boston. See full bio

November 5, 2009

Does sleeping in on weekends keep your weight down?

The connection between insufficient sleep and overweight and obesity in all ages is well recognized. So if kids aren't getting enough sleep during the week, does letting them sleep in on weekends keep them from becoming overweight? It may. Read More

October 21, 2009

It's bad to wake a sleeping baby: fact or fiction?

New parents are often told: sleeping babies, like dogs, should be left in peace. Not all advice, it turns out, is worth following... Read More

October 16, 2009

On God, ghosts, normal and abnormal

Last April I posted about a child and mother I saw in clinic who, while I was taking a history, told me very matter-of-factly about a ghost who inhabited their house. This piece was recently put on the main webpage of Psychology Today, and generated comments from several readers.

Two readers wrote that, in their opinion, there is no difference between communicating with a spiritual entity who shares one's home, and doing so with one that resides in the heavens. This raises a very interesting question: what is normal behavior and what is abnormal; and who decides, or is even in a position to make that determination? Read More

October 4, 2009

Can giving infants pumped breast milk lead to disrupted sleep patterns?

Many nursing mother pump breast milk for their babies once they return to work. A recent study published in the journal "Nutritional Neuroscience" found a definite pattern to when the levels of certain substances (nucleotides) in breast milk were higher and lower, and that those known to induce sleep were, higher in breast milk produced during night than in breast milk produced during the day. The authors also cited previous studies finding that breast milk levels of melatonin, a hormone secreted prior to sleep onset, also vary in relation to the time of day, with melatonin found in breast milk produced at night, but undetectable in breast milk produced during the day.

And so the question: does giving a baby milk produced in the morning for an evening feed have the potential to disrupt the baby's developing sleep patterns?

September 20, 2009

No napping on Rosh Hashana

According to the Talmud, one should not sleep during the day on Rosh Hashanah... Read More

September 3, 2009

Poor sleep increases the risk of infection

I recently came across a study published this year in the Archives of Internal Medicine looking at the association between sleep habits and susceptibility to the common cold.

In this study, 153 healthy men and women between the ages of 21-55 were asked to record their sleep duration and sleep efficiency (the amount of time they actually slept divided by the amount of time in bed) on a daily basis for 14 days. At the end of this period, they were placed in isolation, and given nose drops containing rhinovirus, the virus which causes the common cold. Cold symptoms were monitored starting one day prior to exposure and during each of the 5 days following exposure to the cold virus... Read More

August 29, 2009

Going viral

These last couple of days I have witnessed firsthand one of the cooler and more intriguing aspects of the internet: watching how something relatively obscure suddenly heats up and gets a lot of notice, for no apparent reason... Read More

August 25, 2009

Getting the kids to bed and staying there... without the battles!

A reader wrote:

I have an 8 and a 5 year old. I have not really kept them on a schedule and now that they are both in school I am trying to get them on a bed time schedule and it is not working. They find every reason in the book to get up. I am hungry. I need to use the restroom and so on. They will normally fall asleep about 2 hours after I get them in bed the first time. Do you have any ideas on how to get them to bed at 8:30? They will not need to get up until 6:30 for school. Please give me some ideas. I am going crazy at bed time now.

August 21, 2009

Exercise more and get a better night's sleep

A very interesting study appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Health this week, looking at the effect of exercise on the quality of sleep in teenagers. The researchers found that those who exercised more had better sleep quality, needed less time to fall asleep at night, and had fewer awakenings during the night. They were also less sleepy and had better concentration during the day... Read More

August 13, 2009

Watching TV Leads to Obesity

A recent study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that the more hours spent watching television, the more likely children were to be both fatter and less physically active. The researchers found a significant association between the number of hours of television watched per day and body fat mass, with every extra hour/day spent watching television associated with a 2.2 pound increase in body fat... Read More

Sleep Basics

For many of us, sleep is the sweet balm that soothes and restores us after a long day of work and play. But for those for whom sleep is elusive or otherwise troubled, the issue is far more fraught. Most people, at some point in their lives, experience difficulty falling asleep.

Go to the Sleep Basics page for more on Sleep including:

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