Sleep Patterns and Problems

Sleep patterns change as our bodies mature. At birth, an average newborn sleeps around 16 to 18 hours in a twenty-four hour period. The next stage of life as children, the average is around 14 hours per night. By the time a child reaches their teen years they still need at least 9 ½ hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. When a person reaches adulthood, they need 8 hours of sleep. Some adults need more or less sleep as each person is different. Nevertheless, our bodies still need sleep in order to replenish and work properly.

Anyone of any age can have sleep problems. From infants waking up throughout the night and day with colic, children with nightmares, teens with stress related issues, and adults as well, there are a numerous reasons that sleep issues come into play.

Sleep deprivation is a problem among all ages and all walks of life. As a matter of fact, the National Sleep Foundation has even published warning signs for parents to be able to notice if their child may be having this sleeping problem.
These warning signs are problems waking up in the morning, grouchiness or short-tempered in the afternoon, falling asleep during the day, sleeping too much on the weekend, having problems remembering or focusing, waking up often throughout the night, and having trouble going back to sleep.

Children and teenagers benefit from a regular bedtime routine and so does adults. It is easy to create not only a bedtime schedule but also a sleep environment that will help all individuals young and old receive the proper amount of sleep.

A few of the best products on today’s market for creating a sleep environment include white noise machines, tabletop water fountains, aromatherapy items, and even cuddly sleep machines for younger children.

White noise machines come in many shapes and size and can include sounds that are especially designed for children such as heartbeat or the womb or ones that are perfect for any age such as a waterfall. White noise machines absorb all disruptive sounds inside and outside the home such as traffic, talking in the next room and then emits sounds that are soothing and aid in helping individuals drift off to sleep.

Tabletop water fountains can aid in creating a calm and quiet environment with the soothing sounds of a gentle waterfall. You can find a huge variety of tabletop fountains that are sure to not only help you sleep soundly but will enhance the décor in your bedroom.

For children, cuddly animals are a great help especially those with aromatherapy technology or white noise machine benefits such as the Lavender Lab, the Sleep Sheep, and the Sound Oasis Sleep Bear.

The idea behind creating a sleep environment is to have no other distractions in the room, such as a television, a computer, or any type of game system. All these items do is remind you there is something else to do besides sleep.