When we think about healthy sleep for children, we often focus on bedtime routines, sleep environments, and consistent schedules. However, one critical factor frequently overlooked is the role of nutrition—specifically, iron levels. Emerging research highlights a fascinating and important connection between iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and sleep disruptions in infants and young children.


What is Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA)?
Iron deficiency anemia is the most common single nutrient deficiency worldwide, affecting an estimated 20–25% of infants. This occurs during a crucial time of brain growth and development when the body’s demand for iron is exceptionally high. Infants with IDA not only face physical health challenges but also experience disruptions in sleep patterns, which can have long-lasting effects on their cognitive and behavioural development.


How Does Iron Impact Sleep?
Research conducted by the University of Chile and the University of Michigan sheds light on the complex relationship between iron and sleep. Key findings include:

• Sleep Spindles: Infants with IDA have been shown to have altered sleep spindle activity. Sleep spindles, which are brainwave patterns seen during non-REM sleep, are vital for memory consolidation and motor activity regulation. In IDA infants, spindles are fewer and less frequent, indicating potential disruptions in brain development and sleep quality.
• Sleep/Wake Patterns: IDA infants tend to nap longer during the day, have more restless sleep at night, and spend less time in deep sleep (quiet sleep or NREM). Despite iron therapy correcting anemia, some differences in sleep patterns persist into childhood.
• Motor Activity: Actigraphy studies revealed that IDA infants display higher motor activity during sleep, increased nighttime waking, and reduced quiet sleep. These fragmented sleep patterns may hinder cognitive and emotional development.

Long-Term Effects of Iron Deficiency on Sleep
Even after iron levels are corrected, former IDA children may continue to exhibit altered sleep organization:

• REM Sleep Differences: At age four, children who had IDA in infancy show differences in the timing and duration of REM sleep episodes. REM episodes in the early part of the night are longer. In contrast, those in the later part are shorter, disrupting the natural progression of sleep cycles.
• First Sleep Cycle: These children often have shorter deep sleep (SWS) and NREM2 stages in their first sleep cycle, along with a shorter latency to REM sleep, which may indicate long-term impacts on how their brains regulate sleep.

Why This Matters
The connection between iron deficiency and sleep highlights how nutrition can influence physical health, the quality of sleep, and brain development. Poor sleep in early childhood has been linked to issues such as:

• Irritability and mood swings
• Short attention spans
• Hyperactivity
• Learning and memory challenges

Addressing iron deficiency early can help set the stage for better sleep and healthier development.


How to Support Healthy Iron Levels
To ensure your child is getting enough iron to support both their physical health and sleep:

1. Focus on Iron-Rich Foods: Include lean meats, spinach, lentils, beans, and fortified cereals in their diet. Pair these with vitamin C-rich foods like oranges or tomatoes to boost absorption.
2. Monitor Symptoms: Look for signs of iron deficiency such as fatigue, pale skin, or irritability, and consult your pediatrician if you have concerns.
3. Consider Supplements if Needed: In cases of diagnosed IDA, your doctor may recommend iron supplements. Always follow professional guidance to avoid potential side effects of excessive iron intake.

The Bottom Line
Iron plays a critical role in your child’s growth, development, and even their ability to get a good night’s sleep. If your little one is experiencing sleep disturbances, it’s worth considering whether iron levels might be a contributing factor. By addressing this essential nutrient, you can help your child build a foundation for better sleep and a healthier, happier future.
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When I partner with a family, this link between iron and sleep is something that I am actively looking out for in their child. There have been several times that I have been able to pinpoint low iron as a reason for continued sleep disturbances in infants and children. Sometimes, the last step in the sleep plan is having the child assessed by their Pediatrician and then put on iron supplements when it’s warranted. These supplements make a huge difference for these children, and along with their newfound independent sleep skills, they are now getting the sleep that they need to be happy and healthy.

Reference
Peirano, P. D., Algarín, C. R., Chamorro, R. A., Reyes, S. C., Durán, S. A., Garrido, M. I., & Lozoff, B. (2010). Sleep alterations and iron deficiency anemia in infancy. Sleep Medicine, 11(7), 622–629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2010.03.014

​Quick, without looking it up, what’s the opposite of “nocturnal?”

We all know what nocturnal means, right? Animals that sleep in the day and do most of their activities at night, bats, owls, and raccoons being some familiar examples. 

It always surprises me that we’re not nearly as familiar with the term diurnal (that’s the answer, in case you didn’t know.) since, as humans, that’s what we are. 

​Our eyes don’t adapt to the dark all that well, we don’t have the echolocation skills of the bat, and we rely on the sun for our vitamin D. Since evolution is a painfully slow process, that’s the way it’s going to be for another couple million years, at least. 
But there are some really sweet benefits that come with being daytime creatures, and one of my favourites is a little thing called the circadian rhythm. 

The circadian rhythm, as you may already know, is the internal clock in the human body that prompts us to wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night, and much like a clock, it has a LOT of moving parts, only instead of gears and springs, it’s made up of stimuli and hormones.

Two of these hormones are going to play the starring roles in our story, and those are melatonin and cortisol. If you’ve got a baby having a hard time sleeping, you have undoubtedly heard a lot about both of these guys.

Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland of the brain, and its role is to help the body relax, both mentally and physically, and help us get to sleep and stay asleep. So when your baby gets an 11-12 hour stretch of glorious sleep, you can thank their pineal gland for firing up those melatonin pumps. 

But you can also thank the daylight because exposure to the sun stimulates melatonin production. Production, mind you. Not secretion. We’ll talk about that in a second, but the buildup of the hormone itself is stimulated by exposure to sunlight. So it’s not just an old wives tale. Getting your baby outside during the day really does help them sleep better at night!

This whole intricate dance between light and dark, cortisol and melatonin, awake and asleep, evolved over an incredibly long time, and it worked like magic up until, relatively speaking, very recently, when we discovered that we could pass an electric current along a filament and “artificially” illuminate our surroundings. Before that, we relied exclusively on fire, which emits very little blue light.


Depending on their hue, light bulbs emit quite a bit of it. And TVs, LEDs, computer monitors, iPads, smartphones, and all of those other screens that surround us today, absolutely flood our eyes with it. Unfortunately, all of that blue light coming at us in hours when we would normally be enveloped in darkness signals the brain that it’s still daytime and inhibits the release of melatonin, making it harder to get to sleep.


Since we can’t reasonably get rid of all of the sources of blue light around us, the best thing to do for our little ones’ sleep is to turn off those really intense sources, like TVs and smartphones, a couple of hours before they go to bed, and make sure their sleeping area is as dark as we can get it. I’m talking real dark. Like, can’t see your hand in front of your face, kind of dark. Some blackout blinds can be a game changer, especially if you live somewhere where the days get exceptionally long in the summer. 


So that’s the story of the circadian rhythm and its daily heroic effort to keep us running at peak performance. It really is a fascinating little piece of our physiology, and with just a little support from our side, it can work wonders in getting us out of bed with energy and enthusiasm and helping us feel relaxed and peaceful when it’s time to sleep. Work with it instead of resisting it, and I guarantee you’ll start seeing and feeling the results immediately. ​

Happy 2023, everybody! It’s a whole new year full of potential and opportunities!

If you’re like me, when the calendar flips over, you set some lofty new goals to improve your quality of life. 

Get more exercise, eat healthier, land a new job, save some money, and spend more time with family; there’s no shortage of resolutions we can make to make ourselves and our families happier and healthier. Creating a “New Year’s resolution” has been around for hundreds of years.

Sadly, around 88% of people seem to fall short of their resolution goals, but I have a great strategy to help you join the happy minority who set their intentions on January 1st and succeed.

How? Well, you probably won’t be too surprised to hear that it involves sleep. (Surprise!) But don’t get the wrong idea! I’m looking at four of the most common, non-sleep-related new year’s resolutions and explaining how a good night’s sleep can scientifically maximize your chances of achieving each of them.

So check it out! Here they are, along with the percentage of people who swear they’re going to achieve it on an average New Year’s Eve.


Lose Weight - 40%
If you’re not getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep per night, it might be affecting your ability to lose weight. 

That may seem a little counterintuitive to some people. After all, the more time we spend awake and active, the more calories we burn, right?
The problem is that sleep plays a crucial role in moderating two vital hormones called ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin sends hunger signals to your brain, and leptin does the opposite, signalling fullness and suppressing hunger. 

A 2004 study found that ghrelin levels were almost 15% higher in people who didn’t get enough sleep, and leptin levels were 15.5% lower, causing them to feel hungry more often. So if you’re determined to lose weight this year, getting enough sleep can go a long way to helping you reach that goal.


Get more exercise - 52%
Getting in shape is always an admirable goal. Getting your heart rate up, staying active, improving flexibility, and building strength are all excellent ways to help you stay healthy and feel your best.

But if you’re not getting the sleep you need, getting motivated to hit the gym or go for a run can be a much more significant challenge than it needs to be. You’re likely to get tired out faster and not see the results as quickly as you would if you’re regularly enjoying a good night’s sleep.
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Sleep is the body’s regeneration phase, so even if you work out vigorously during the day, your muscles won’t regenerate bigger and stronger if you don’t get the recommended amount of sleep at night. Or, as the gym fanatics would put it, “You ain’t gonna see those gains, bro!”

In short, getting the biggest return on the effort you put into your workout requires a good night’s sleep. Seeing those results is an excellent way to stay motivated. 


Spend more time with family - 37%
We’re all looking to make the most of our time, but we also obviously have responsibilities that must be attended to. Whether you’re working a 9-5 job, running a small business, or a stay-at-home mom, by the time you’ve tackled everything that needs to be done in a day, there’s hardly any time to just get together as a family and enjoy each other’s company. 

We can’t increase the number of hours in a day, but we can increase our productivity, freeing up time to do the things we love, and to do so, all you need to do is get to bed on time.
According to Dr. Michael Grandner, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program, “Many people believe that in order to get more done, they need to sacrifice sleep.” However, this study shows that, quite to the contrary, poor sleep is associated with lower productivity in general, and specifically across a wide range of areas.”

So, simply put, even though you may be getting to bed earlier, that extra sleep will increase your productivity to the point where you’ll actually have more time during the day to spend doing the things you love.


Eat Healthier - 50%
Check this out. A 2013 study found that sleep deprivation led to significantly higher cravings for foods high in fat and/or sugar. 

You can check out the article for all the science-y stuff, but I’ll let the study’s authors explain it in layperson’s terms.

“What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified.

These results shed light on how the brain becomes impaired by sleep deprivation, leading to the selection of more unhealthy foods and, ultimately, higher rates of obesity.”

So, getting enough sleep can actually make it easier for you to eat right. How great is that!?

And there you have it, people. If you want to set yourself up for some new year’s resolution success, there’s one habit you can focus on that’ll make all the others much easier to achieve. Get to bed on time, turn off those screens at least an hour before you hit the hay, leave your phone in the living room, and take the time to wind down before bed. 

And if you’re not sleeping well because your little one is waking up at night, we should talk! Solving your baby’s sleep issues is the first step to solving your own, and I’ve helped hundreds of families do exactly that. 
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Book your Free 20 Minute Sleep Evaluation now. 
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Before discussing attachment theory and its influence, it is vitally important to define it. There has been significant confusion about the meaning of the term since the introduction of the “attachment parenting” philosophy, but they’re two completely different things.
 
What is attachment Parenting?
“Attachment parenting,” a term coined by Drs. William and Martha Sears which refers to a specific parenting approach advocating, among other things, baby-wearing, bed-sharing, and breastfeeding on demand.
 
The popularity of Dr. Sears’ book has caused some confusion about the differences between this parenting style and the scientific notion of attachment theory1, and because of Sears’ adherence to co-sleeping, nursing on demand, and responding immediately to a baby when they’re fussing, it’s easy to see how some parents arrived at the conclusion that disregarding these tenets by helping their babies learn to sleep independently could damage the “attachment” between a baby and their caregiver. But again, attachment theory and attachment parenting are in no way related to each other in anything other than name.

What is Attachment Theory?
Alan Sroufe, a developmental psychologist at the Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota, defines attachment as “...a relationship in the service of a baby’s emotion regulations and exploration. It is the deep, abiding confidence a baby has in the availability and responsiveness of the caregiver.”2
 
At its origin, attachment theory was developed by British psychologist John Bowlby, and greatly expanded upon and tested by American psychologist Mary Ainsworth. In its current understanding, it states that there are four categories of attachment between a baby and their caregivers: secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure- resistant, and insecure-disorganized.
 
Children with a secure attachment to their primary caregiver feel safe expressing distress or discomfort, and will explore unfamiliar areas around them confidently so long as the caregiver is nearby. They tend to become distressed when their caregiver leaves the vicinity, but respond positively when they return.
 
Children with insecure attachments avoid their caregiver when distressed and minimize displays of negative emotion in their presence, presumably because the caregiver has responded to previous displays of distress and negative emotion in negative ways, such as ignoring, ridiculing, or becoming annoyed with the child. The infant learns quickly that displays of distress provoke negative emotions from the caregiver and therefore avoids exhibiting them.