Someone Needs a Nap

Parents frequently ask questions about the naps that their children take. Often they revolve around whether a child is napping too little or too much or about the relationship between a child's age and naps. I remember scheduled naps in kindergarten when we each would bring a little rug from home and nap on the classroom floor. Children either napped or were told to lie quietly if they did not go to sleep.

That practice seems not to be done as much now in U.S. schools. I recall asking a school superintendent about naps in his district, and he replied, "Oh no, we have too much instruction to accomplish to have the children take naps!" I was somewhat taken aback as I knew that children would be more receptive to learning if they were well-rested, which might require a nap. But I did not argue the point, as my intention was to collect data, not try to influence policy.

Napping has been the subject of research by child development and child sleep researchers, and there is a considerable body of knowledge available. In a review of 44 studies published in Sleep Medicine Reviews (Staton et al., 2020), researchers determined that over 97 percent of infants and toddlers napped, and the figure decreased only to 92 percent at age 5. Duration of naps declined by around 50 percent between the ages of 2 and 5.

The benefits of naps have been shown in both adults and children.

Following a nap, young children have demonstrated greater attention and learning compared to an equivalent period awake. Regulation of emotions, a critical skill being developed in early childhood, is also enhanced after naps. The evidence suggests that the consolidation and strengthening of learning—both cognitive and emotional—occurs during sleep and naps.

Recently Hanron and colleagues (2023) investigated this phenomenon experimentally with a group of 63 preschoolers. Children viewed a series of faces that had been created to show neutral emotions but differed in verbal descriptions given to them. For example, one face might be accompanied by the statement, "This is Ben. He was angry and tore up several toys this morning." Or, "This is Evelyn. She is happy because she helped the teacher today." While there was no difference in memory between the nap and no-nap groups for ascribed emotional states and behavior immediately after the nap period that day, when the children were tested again on the next day, the combination of a night's sleep combined with napping the previous day proved to benefit processing and memory for emotional content compared with children who did not nap.

These studies and others have helped us understand the ways in which naps provide benefits for young children. When I have described results such as this to my older sister, who raised six children, she often says, "That's just common sense!" I concede that to her, of course, and explain that researchers still want to understand more about the how and why of those benefits. While parents have long understood the value of napping for young children ("Someone needs a nap!"), and research is confirming and expanding that view, some parents and schools may have to be reminded of that from time to time.