Putting kids to bed early is better than allowing them to sleep longer hours - and it gives more benefits for the mothers, too, according to Australian Women's Weekly.
Researchers from Australia studied 3,600 children who participated in the bigger study Growing Up in Australia and investigated how the children's sleeping patterns affected their health. They grouped the children into four: those who slept early and woke up early; those who slept early and woke up late; those who slept late and woke up late; and those who slept late and woke up early.
Those who slept early went to bed at 8:30 p.m., while those who slept late went to bed at a later time. The children involved in the study were from the age groups 4-5, 6-7 and 8-9 years old.
The researchers found that those who slept early and woke up early had better health overall.
"These benefits were seen in all early-to-bed kids regardless of whether they woke early or slept late," lead researcher Jon Quach from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at the University of Melbourne said.
He emphasized that better health quality was achieved not by sleeping longer but by sleeping early.
"This is valuable information for parents, many of whom will know about how important it is for their kids to get lots of sleep overall but not much about how significant the bedtime itself is," Quach said.
And there's a bonus: the mothers of the kids who were early to bed and early to rise showed improvement in mental health because they got more "me" time.
"So mums and dads, getting kids to bed early is not just great for them. It's good for you too," Quach said.
The study was presented at the Sleep Down Under 2015 conference and was published in the Oct. 23 issue of the Australian Journal of Pharmacy.
