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About 16% of parents of school-age children report that their child has difficulty falling asleep. Investigators examined normal sleep patterns and factors associated with sleep latency in a community sample of 519 healthy 7-year-old children who were born in New Zealand in 1995–1996. Sleep history and behavior were determined using standardized sleep questionnaires. Physical activity and sleep latency were measured with a waist actigraph worn by children for one 24-hour period.
Overall, median sleep duration was 10 hours, and median sleep latency was 26 minutes (interquartile range, 13–42 minutes). Among the 54 children (10.5%) whose parents reported that they had difficulty falling asleep, median sleep latency was significantly longer (med…