China's first dedicated research center for studying children's sleep habits has opened at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center.
According to the center's first study, which involved 300 babies from birth to age three, far too many Shanghai babies sleep poorly, mainly because their parents fail to adopt the right nocturnal habits in the early days of development.
Babies should be able to sleep right through the night after they are 6 months old, but only 10.2 percent of the babies monitored were able to do so, according to the study.
The number rose to 11 percent and 12.9 percent respectively when they were 9 months and 1 year old, the report showed.
"The key reason for babies lacking good sleep habits is that their parents fail to adopt the right methods for encouraging their children to go to sleep," said Jiang Fan, leader of the research group. "Only five to 10 percent of the babies failed to sleep through the night for health reasons."
Most Chinese mothers soothe babies to sleep by breastfeeding them, giving them pacifiers, or holding them in their arms. About 92 percent of the babies were encouraged to fall asleep in these ways when they were 6 months old, but that fell to 84 percent and 78.5 percent when they were 9 months and 1 year old.
"When parents were helping babies to sleep using these methods, they were actually cultivating the habit of depending on external conditions to fall into deep sleep," she explained.
"For example, babies who fell asleep with nipples or pacifiers in their mouths woke up during the night 80 percent more than those sleeping naturally."
Jiang pointed out that Chinese parents' preference for co-sleeping with their babies also increases dependence on external help, adding that watching TV also contributed to the problem.
