Sleep, it’s important, right?!

Has your kid's new COVID-19 schedule got them going to bed after midnight and sleeping until noon?

Well it’s time NOW to start getting back into a normal sleep schedule for school, even if they are learning online.

So how much sleep does your child need? This is a good estimate, but teenagers can require up to 12 hours of sleep while they’re going through a growth spurt.

How much sleep does my child need?

• 3-6 year olds need 10-12 hours of sleep
• 7-12 year olds need 10-11 hours of sleep
• 13-18 year olds need 8-9 hours of sleep

If your child has a midnight or (gasp!) even later bedtime right now, start working on adjusting their bedtime slowly over the next few weeks. I propose the following schedule:

• Aug 1: 11:30 p.m.
• Aug 2: 11:15 p.m.
• Aug 3: 11 p.m.
• Aug 4: 10:45 p.m.
• Aug 5: 10:30 p.m.
• Aug 6: 10:15 p.m.
• Aug 7: 10 p.m.
• Aug 8: 9:45 p.m.
• Aug 9: 9:30 p.m.
• Aug 10: 9:15 p.m.
• Aug 11: 9:15 p.m.
• Aug 12: 9 p.m.*

*Early elementary children will likely need a 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. bedtime, adjust the 15-minute pattern above as needed.

Keep in mind that bedtime means lights out, no screen time. Charge your child’s phone in your room, you’d be shocked to find out the long text message conversations happening at 2 a.m.! No TV in the bedroom either. If your child is having trouble with the adjustment in bedtime, it is perfectly fine to give melatonin about 20-30 minutes before bedtime. One or 3 milligrams is appropriate for elementary age, up to 5 milligrams for teenagers. Don’t allow caffeine after noon either.

Best of luck transitioning to school this year! We’re all going to have to work nicely together to get through this, but we can and we will!

1. Make sure your house is safe while you are away. Alert the neighbors that you will be out of town. Stop the mail and newspaper from delivering or make sure a neighbor can pick it up for you. Now there’s even technology available to set a timer on the lights in your house. The timer lets you keep your lights on and turn them off the same as you would if you were actually at home, making any potential bad guy think you are there.
2. Don’t let everyone know your plans. Remember it’s not only old high school friends and co-workers following your every move. Crooks are definitely Facebook and Twitter savvy. Don’t announce to everyone that you are taking off soon or that you are trying to get packed tomorrow. Do things the old fashioned way and call the people who need to know you will be out.
3. Get your rest. A report released by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety states that drivers who sleep only five or six hours in a 24-hour period are twice as likely to crash as drivers who get seven hours of sleep or more. Crash rates increase with every hour of lost sleep.
4. Make sure your child is secure in their car seat or booster before you travel. You can’t be too careful on the road, both in the U.S. and out of the country. Motor vehicle crashes are the No. 1 killer of kids 14 years and under in the United States.
5. And secure on the plane too. Buy the extra ticket for your baby and make sure your child is properly protected in an approved safety seat. The No. 1 way children are injured in planes is due to turbulence. For safety, children need to be either restrained in their safety seat or in the lap belt in the plane seat.
6. Bring a current picture of your child with you on your trip. Have a very specific description of what your child is wearing in case your son or daughter gets lost. In this day and age of cameras on your phone, it’s easy to take a picture of your child that morning.
7. This is an uncomfortable one, but so important. Let your child know it’s OK to scream and fight if someone tries to grab them. However, just throwing a fit may not work. We’ve all seen kids screaming and crying as parents carry them out of the store. If the child is old enough they need to know to scream “this isn’t my Mommy or Daddy, help me” instead of just screaming like they are upset because they were told “no.”
8. Traveling with asthma. Be sure to pack your child’s quick-relief medicine and long-term control medicine. Keep them where you can reach them and not packed away. Pack your peak flow meter, health insurance cards and your asthma action plan. Consider purchasing a portable nebulizer. Call ahead to where you are traveling and discuss your child’s triggers. Bring your child’s pillow and blanket from home.
9. Childproof your grandparents’ home. Make sure they know about any nut allergies or any other allergy they should know about during your stay. Check all the rooms for any electrical cords, cleaning supplies and loose pills on the floor. Grandparents usually leave them out so they can remember to take them. Don’t let this happen. Put the pills away. Often times they aren’t child proofed and kids can easily mistake them for candy. Also remember to unpack and put away any medications that you bring with you.
10. Avoiding food allergies takes extra prep work. Research local hospitals and medical care wherever you are traveling. Also call ahead or go online to find out about area grocery stores, restaurants and any other place you may stop along the way. Make your family aware. Yes grandma makes the best pecan pie, but make sure everyone knows your child has allergies and one bite can mean horrible consequences. Pack your own food if necessary. Stay alert and be prepared with your child’s medications
11. Be aware of the new surroundings for your kiddo. If they have a family pool without a fence, talk to your children about them. Make them aware of the dangers of stairs and banisters, and go outside with them to point out dangers, such as rakes, power tools, spots where there may be snakes and other critters.
12. Be safe. Cook Children's Trauma team sees lots of ATV/4-wheeler injuries during the holiday break. If your child is on an ATV, please make sure it's built for a child. No child under 5 should be on one at all, let alone driving it. If your child is on a bike, hover board or skateboard, please be sure your kids have on the proper safety equipment (helmets please) and establish the rule of safety first. With family over, it can be easy to think someone else is watching your kids. Mom and dad, make sure you are the ones responsible for supervision.

Hope this list helps during this busy time of year. Happy holidays from Cook Children’s.

More and more young athletes are experiencing pain while participating in sports. Some have traumatic injuries like sprained ankles and torn ligaments, while others experience overuse injuries like low back pain and tennis elbow. All of these athletes can suffer from significant pain on and off the field. No athlete is exempt.

All sports require a baseline of flexibility, strength, stability and endurance, as well as a time of rest between activities to safely perform the required activities. With the rise in athlete specialization in a single sport, played year-round, we have seen an increase in injuries and pain in these young athletes. These young athletes are also starting at a much younger age. Many more stress injuries have resulted, such as ligament tears, shoulder strains, stress fractures and back strains. In addition, there has been a rise in chronic pain (pain lasting longer than 3 months) among younger athletes. I never heard of a teenager with chronic pain when I was growing up! How do we deal with this growing population? “No pain, no gain?” “Just grin and bear it, the pain will go away?” “Slap some ice on it and get back out there?” There needs to be a better way. Fortunately, there is!

The best plan is obviously prevention. However, for the purpose of this article, we will assume the athlete is already experiencing pain. In this case, there are several things to be done. Pain should not be ignored! Our body is trying to tell us there is something wrong. Acute pain should be addressed with the gold standard: Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation (RICE). We are typically willing to ice, compress and elevate, but many times rest is not followed properly. “He’s our best pitcher!” “If she’s not playing, we will lose our chance to make it past district!” “I really want to play, so I won’t tell coach about the pain.” If we do not allow the tissue to heal properly, the tissue can become weaker and will be at a higher risk for being injured again, maybe even worse than the first time. Now that pain is being addressed properly, what do we do? Now is the time to work on the basics again:

Flexibility: Muscular flexibility is vital. Tight muscles are much more prone to injury than flexible muscles. Tight muscles can be damaged during high velocity movements. Also, tight muscles can alter how our joints move, making other structures more prone to injury, such as ligaments, joints and bones.

Strength: Muscular strength is also very important. Strong muscles allow our bodies to perform the tasks that we put them through. Strong muscles also allow greater protection from injury.

Balance/control: And don’t forget about core strength! This is maybe the most missed strengthening component in most sports and possibly the most important muscle group for any sport! A weak core places an increased stress on other body parts and increases our risk for injury. How can we expect a soccer player to avoid ankle or knee injuries if he/she can’t even balance on one foot?

Return-to-sport: If the athlete’s strength is improving and the pain is under control, we can work on sport specific activities. This is where a physical therapist or athletic trainer with a strong knowledge of sports performance is vital. Coaches properly trained in technique can do this as well as long as they are able to spend dedicated one-on-one time with the athlete.

If pain from a recent injury is not properly dealt with, or the injury leaves the athlete with pain that lasts more than 3 months, chronic pain may develop. Now our focus as a physical therapist is more on return of function versus the pain itself. Seeing a physician that specializes in pain, such as Dr. Artee Gandhi and Dr. Aimee McAnally at Cook Children’s, can be beneficial as well. The physician could prescribe or recommend one or more of the following treatments in conjunction with the physical therapy:

1. Medications to reduce pain or inflammation while working on regaining function.

2. Biofeedback therapy with a psychotherapist, such as Wayne Martin, LCSW, psychophysiologist at Cook Children’s, to help the athlete learn how to relax muscles, reduce stress and visualize performance for relief of pain and return to normal activities.

3. Pediatric massage therapy to address tension and/or increased sensation.

4. Acupuncture therapy to help control pain.

Related links:

• Football injury prevention
• Baseball injury prevention
• Softball injury prevention
• Basketball injury prevention
• Soccer injury prevention
• Hockey injury prevention
• Gymnastic injury prevention
• Tee-ball injury prevention
• Swimming injury prevention
• Tennis injury prevention
• SPORTS resources
• Does your child play one sport?
• 9 ways to prevent injuries in young athletes
• Cheerleader injuries
• Dance injury prevention
• Top 10 questions parents have about sports injuries
• Young athlete's injury prevention guide
• Strength training in children/adolescents (5-15 years)
• Rise of overuse injuries in school-age athletes
• The basics of sports injury prevention for kids
• When growing pains are not growing pains
• Preventing children's sports injuries
• Pain that won't go away