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A 25-Hour Day?

Children and Circadian Rhythms

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

We live in a 24-hour world. The earth rotates in a 24-hour cycle; our clocks are set to a 24-hour cycle; we are part of a 24-hour society. However, there are some whose bodies tend to have a cycle of their own that does not always fit within this pattern -- including approximately 200,000 children in the United States. According to the National Sleep Foundation, circadian rhythm disorders affect one out of every 15 children between the ages of 5 and 13, and although parents know there is a problem, they are clueless as to what it is or how to help. These children do not follow a 24-hour cycle -- they are on their own time.

"My son was consistently awake in the middle of the night," says Patrysha Korchinski of Alberta, Canada. "He'd be up at midnight and play happily and quietly till 5 or 6 a.m. My older son needed care during the day, my younger one at night. I was a wreck."

There are cycles or rhythms all around us. The earth rotating, the sun rising and setting and the birds flying south each winter. Daily, seasonally and yearly, these rhythms continue without warning and without fail. And humans have rhythms, too. "Every human, every animal, every plant and anything that is alive in the world has a biological rhythm for rest and activity cycles," says Dr. Stephen Sheldon, director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill. "Flowers open and close. Leaves fall off the trees in the fall and grow back in the spring. Humans sleep and wake. Each of these is a cycle or a rhythm specific for that organism and differs in time and duration on biological need. The human rhythm is about a day -- or a circadian rhythm."

Want to see more?

• Taking A Night-time Stroll: Children and Sleepwalking
• Not-S o-Silent Sleep: Children and Snoring
• Excessi ve Daytime Sleepiness and Your Child
• Terror in the Night
• When Kids Go Bump in the Night

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