Before you put your little one down for that midday nap, you might want to think twice.
A daytime snooze may not be as necessary for young children as previously thought, according to a recent study review.
According to healthfinder.gov, a division of the lead office at the National Institutes of Health, researchers now say that children over the age of 2 who nap during the day tend to get to bed later and get less sleep than those who don't nap.
Researchers reviewed 26 previous studies related to napping in children age 5 and younger, analyzing information about nighttime sleep patterns, behavior, stress, obesity, accidents and thinking skills.
Their findings were published Tuesday in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
"The most significant finding from our study is that there is not support in the current body of research for enforcing naps in preschool children to improve their health and well-being," lead authors Karen Thorpe and Sally Staton said. Both are researchers at the Queensland University of Technology School of Psychology and Counseling in Australia.
"Napping in early childhood is often assumed to have universal benefit and this assumption hasn't really been questioned by research before now," the authors added.
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Daytime napping was consistently linked to falling asleep later, getting less sleep in general, and having poor-quality sleep, especially among children older than 2, the study found.
The authors say the findings are not meant to discourage napping altogether. Rather, they say the research shows there is no benefit in encouraging naps in older children who have naturally outgrown them.
They also add that there is no magic age at which napping should stop.
Most children will naturally tire of daytime napping before they turn 5, and more generally before they turn 3 or 4, according to the study authors.
For more information on children and sleep, visit the National Sleep Foundation.
