Bengaluru hospital tracks infant sleep, says average nap time 11.5 hours

BENGALURU: The average duration of night sleep for Indian infants aged below 18 months is 8.5 hours, an hour lesser than their western counterparts. Total sleep duration of Indian infants for a day is an average 11.5 hours, less by 1 to 1.5 hours compared to infants in the west, says a study conducted by a Bengaluru children’s hospital.
The study — Evaluation of Sleep Patterns and Practices in Healthy Indian Infants: Is there a Cultural Difference? — was conducted by Shishuka children’s hospital between April 2020 and April 2021; it evaluated the sleeping patterns of 1,027 infants in the 0 to 18 months age group.
The study which analysed the quantity and quality of infant sleep says that the average bedtime was 9.45pm. “Though the average time for infants to go to bed was 9.45pm, it ranged from 6.30pm among some kids to 2.30am among a few others, which is worrisome,” said Dr KR Bharath Reddy, paediatric sleep specialist and director of Shishuka, who headed the study.
Published in the current edition of Indian Journal of Sleep Medicine, the study says that 41.6% of the infants’ parents felt that their babies had a sleep problem, and 19.2% among them noted serious issues with their little ones’ sleep pattern.
Consolidated sleep through the night plays a critical role in growth, development and behaviour of a child. “There is a need to understand sleep practices in the region to enable parent counselling and develop guidelines for healthy Indian infants,” said Dr Reddy, adding: “As per our study, infants woke up 3-4 times during the night. Every time they woke up, it led to parental sleep disturbance as well.”
In nearly 46% of the cases, babies needed to be fed, 32% rocked and 15.2% held to sleep. Only 7.6% of the infants did not use any sleep associations (like rocking, feeding) and self-soothed. The researchers point out that babies who were able to self-soothe slept longer during both night and day compared to those dependent on associations.
“After the age of six months, infants must sleep at a stretch for eight hours, known as consolidated sleep. It is not true that to wake up in between is a usual occurrence... Continuous sleep for eight hours through the night is what is needed after six months of age,” explained Dr Reddy.
“Parents who read about sleep coaching ask us for help. We need to break the myth that feeding or rocking makes a baby sleep. It only makes babies get habituated to these, and they tend to associate sleep with the same. I believe that helping a baby self-sooth and sleep coaching early can assist both the child and parents experience good sleep,” said Dr Reddy. Indian parents finishing work late is another social issue which impacts night sleep of babies, Dr Reddy added.
Dr Rashmi Bhopi, department of paediatrics, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Jersey, US and Dr Maya Rajagopal, department of paediatrics, Child Health Institute of New Jersey, US were co-authors of the study.