How Screen Time Affects Your Child's Sleep: A Pediatrician's Perspective

There’s no getting away from digital screens in today’s society. Smartphones, tablets, television, and computers are integrated into our lives, and even your child’s, at home, play, and school. 

For all the advantages these devices bring, there are some challenges. If you’ve noticed changes to your child’s sleep habits, their screen usage may be a factor you want to consider. 

Dr 2 Kids, Smita Tandon MD in Fountain Valley, California, takes your concerns for your child’s sleep patterns seriously. Sleep is a foundation of health. 

Bedtime resistance, difficulty falling asleep, and daytime sleepiness can make your child’s life much more difficult. Let’s look at sleep hygiene and the effects of screen time on it. 

Why sleep is important

From a pediatric perspective, sleep for kids isn’t just about rest. Sleep is an important part of brain development and learning. New information becomes processed, stabilized, and hardwired into long-term memory while your child sleeps. It’s called memory consolidation. 

Sleep stabilizes their moods and balances emotions. Their immune systems develop at night, producing proteins that target infective agents and inflammation. Physical growth is much faster overnight due to the release of human growth hormones during sleep. 

Attention, memory, and school performance are all tied to healthy sleep habits, a relationship that’s supported extensively in clinical research. 

How screen time interferes with sleep

Digital screens are often stimulating. It’s one of their advantages, making learning and play fun, and in some cases even addictive. 

However, constant stimulation isn’t sustainable. Screen time creates some big challenges for sleep patterns if not kept in check. Here’s how: 

• Stimulation carryover: Games, social interaction, and entertainment immediately before bedtime make it harder to reach restfulness that leads to sleep
• Overnight interruptions: Taking devices to bed creates distractions that interfere with sleep, like notifications, charging, and extending sleep fragmentation
• Elimination of calming time: Reading or family time may be surrendered to screened devices
• Blue light emission: Light exposure from digital screens can suppress melatonin production, delaying natural sleep chemistry changes in their body

Ideally, bedrooms should be device-free zones. 

Strategies for improving sleep hygiene

You can help your child achieve better sleep by adopting a few strategies that break the psychological tether between child and screen. These tips include: 

• Establishing a predictable bedtime routine that’s clearly communicated
• A 60-minute screen time ban before scheduled bedtimes
• A list of acceptable activities for this pre-bedtime period including things like: bathing, conversation, reading, and gentle exercise
• Creating a charging station outside of bedrooms, where devices must remain overnight
• Adopting whole-family buy-in so that children and adults follow the same guidelines

Contact Dr 2 Kids, Smita Tandon MD for more ideas or for when these changes aren’t producing expected results. Call or click to arrange a sleep consultation with Dr. Tandon today.