Children in households with set bedtimes and children who get adequate sleep score higher on a range of developmental assessments.

Results indicate that a regular bedtime was the sleep habit which was the most consistent predictor of positive developmental outcomes at the age of 4. Children whose parents reported having rules about what time their child goes to bed had higher scores for receptive and expressive language, phonological awareness, literacy and early math abilities.

According to Dr. Jay Gordon, babies sleeping on a safe surface with sober, nonsmoking parents respond to their parents, and the parents respond to them. The chance of SIDS occurring in this situation are close to zero. Babies in a crib or in a room away from their parents, on the other hand, will breastfeed less and are at greater risk of infections, including life-threatening ones. The medical profession, as it often does, is approaching the entire idea of the family bed backward. A baby in the same bed with his or her parents is surrounded by the best possible surveillance and safety system. It must be the responsibility of the manufacturers and proponents of cribs and separated sleep to prove that such disruption is safe, not the other way around. Read the original article on Mercola.com

A new study has found that overweight children, especially girls, show signs of the negative consequences of being overweight as early as kindergarten.

Both boys and girls who are overweight from kindergarten through third grade display more depression, anxiety and loneliness, and those negative feelings worsen over time.

The researchers examined the social and behavioral development of 8,000 school-age children. They evaluated factors that have not been studied previously, including age at becoming overweight and length of time being overweight. Read the original article.