Posted on December 16, 2009

When a boy is hyperactive, not getting enough sleep can exacerbate the problem. A new research study has been published in Pediatrics and summarized in Science Daily. This study is the first to evaluate a large group of children to examine the link between lack of sleep and hyperactivity.

In this study, 2,057 mothers answered questionnaires annually that concerned sleep duration and hyperactivity of their children. This data was collected on the children from birth to five years of age.

A research team from the Université de Montréal, its affiliated Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal and Sainte Justine University Hospital Research Center, as well as the Université Laval and the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), analyzed the data.

“Hyperactivity problems may interfere with night-time sleep," said senior author Jacques Montplaisir, a professor in the Université de Montréal Department of Psychiatry and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal, in Science Daily. "We found that children who didn’t sleep long were generally hyperactive boys who lived under adverse family conditions."

According to this research team, boys – more than girls – with mothers of a low education, insufficient family income and who were comforted outside the bed or got into bed with mom after awakening at night were considered to be at more risk of having both short sleep duration and high hyperactivity.

"Short or fragmented sleep leads to sleepiness, which could manifest as hyperactivity in boys," explained Dr. Montplaisir. "However, the risk of abbreviated sleep in highly hyperactive children is stronger than the risk of hyperactivity among kids with short sleep duration."