What do you imagine a good night’s sleep to be?

Often when people come into our sleep clinic seeking treatment, they share ideas about healthy sleep.

Many think when their head hits the pillow, they should fall into a deep and restorative sleep, and emerge after about eight hours feeling refreshed. They’re in good company – many Australians hold the same belief.

In reality, healthy sleep is cyclic across the night, as you move in and out of the different stages of sleep, often waking up several times. Some people remember one or more of these awakenings, others do not. Let’s consider what a healthy night’s sleep looks like.

Sleep cycles are a roller-coaster

As an adult, our sleep moves through different cycles and brief awakenings during the night. Sleep cycles last roughly 90 minutes each.

We typically start the night with lighter sleep, before moving into deeper sleep stages, and rising again into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage of sleep often linked to vivid dreaming.

If sleeping well, we get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, with REM sleep more common in the second half of the night.

Adults usually move through five or six sleep cycles in a night, and it is entirely normal to wake up briefly at the end of each one. That means we might be waking up five times during the night. This can increase with older age and still be healthy. If you’re not remembering these awakenings that’s OK – they can be quite brief.

What does getting a ‘good’ sleep actually mean?

You’ll often hear that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. But good sleep is about more than the number of hours – it’s also about the quality.

For most people, sleeping well means being able to fall asleep soon after getting into bed (within around 30 minutes), sleeping without waking up for long periods, and waking feeling rested and ready for the day.

You shouldn’t be feeling excessively sleepy during the day, especially if you’re regularly getting at least seven hours of refreshing sleep a night (this is a rough rule of thumb).

But are you noticing you’re feeling physically tired, needing to nap regularly and still not feeling refreshed? It may be worthwhile touching base with your general practitioner, as there a range of possible reasons.

Common issues

Sleep disorders are common. Up to 25% of adults have insomnia, a sleep disorder where it may be hard to fall or stay asleep, or you may wake earlier in the morning than you’d like.

Rates of common sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnoea – where your breathing can partially or completely stop many times during the night – also increase with age, affecting 20% of early adults and 40% of people in middle age. There are effective treatments, so asking for help is important.

Beyond sleep disorders, our sleep can also be disrupted by chronic health conditions – such as pain – and by certain medications.

There can also be other reasons we’re not sleeping well. Some of us are woken by children, pets or traffic noise during the night. These “forced awakenings” mean we may find it harder to get up in the morning, take longer to leave bed and feel less satisfied with our sleep. For some people, night awakenings may have no clear cause.

A good way to tell if these awakenings are a problem for you is by thinking about how they affect you. When they cause feelings of frustration or worry, or are impacting how we feel and function during the day, it might be a sign to seek some help.

We also may struggle to get up in the morning. This could be for a range of reasons, including not sleeping long enough, going to bed or waking up at irregular times – or even your own internal clock, which can influence the time your body prefers to sleep.

If you’re regularly struggling to get up for work or family needs, it can be an indication you may need to seek help. Some of these factors can be explored with a sleep psychologist if they are causing concern.

Can my smart watch help?

It is important to remember sleep-tracking devices can vary in accuracy for looking at the different sleep stages. While they can give a rough estimate, they are not a perfect measure.

In-laboratory polysomnography, or PSG, is the best standard measure to examine your sleep stages. A PSG examines breathing, oxygen saturation, brain waves and heart rate during sleep.

Rather than closely examining nightly data (including sleep stages) from a sleep tracker, it may be more helpful to look at the patterns of your sleep (bed and wake times) over time.

Understanding your sleep patterns may help identify and adjust behaviours that negatively impact your sleep, such as your bedtime routine and sleeping environment.

And if you find viewing your sleep data is making you feel worried about your sleep, this may not be useful for you. Most importantly, if you are concerned it is important to discuss it with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate specialist sleep health provider.

Amy Reynolds, Associate Professor in Clinical Sleep Health, Flinders University; Claire Dunbar, Research Associate, Sleep Health, Flinders University; Gorica Micic, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Clinical Psychologist, Flinders University; Hannah Scott, Research Fellow in Sleep Health, Flinders University, and Nicole Lovato, Associate Professor, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Toddler milk is popular and becoming more so. Just over a third of Australian toddlers drink it. Parents spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it globally. Around the world, toddler milk makes up nearly half of total formula milk sales, with a 200% growth since 2005. Growth is expected to continue.

We’re concerned about the growing popularity of toddler milk – about its nutritional content, cost, how it’s marketed, and about the impact on the health and feeding of young children. Some of us voiced our concerns on the ABC’s 7.30 program recently.

But what’s in toddler milk? How does it compare to cow’s milk? How did it become so popular?

What is toddler milk? Is it healthy?

Toddler milk is marketed as appropriate for children aged one to three years. This ultra-processed food contains:

• skim milk powder (cow, soy or goat)
• vegetable oil
• sugars (including added sugars)
• emulsifiers (to help bind the ingredients and improve the texture)

• added vitamins and minerals.

Toddler milk is usually lower in calcium and protein, and higher in sugar and calories than regular cow’s milk. Depending on the brand, a serve of toddler milk can contain as much sugar as a soft drink.

Even though toddler milks have added vitamins and minerals, these are found in and better absorbed from regular foods and breastmilk. Toddlers do not need the level of nutrients found in these products if they are eating a varied diet.

Global health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), and Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, do not recommend toddler milk for healthy toddlers.

Some children with specific metabolic or dietary medical problems might need tailored alternatives to cow’s milk. However, these products generally are not toddler milks and would be a specific product prescribed by a health-care provider.

Toddler milk is also up to four to five times more expensive than regular cow’s milk. “Premium” toddler milk (the same product, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals) is more expensive.

With the cost-of-living crisis, this means families might choose to go without other essentials to afford toddler milk.

How toddler milk was invented

Toddler milk was created so infant formula companies could get around rules preventing them from advertising their infant formula.

When manufacturers claim benefits of their toddler milk, many parents assume these claimed benefits apply to infant formula (known as cross-promotion). In other words, marketing toddler milks also boosts interest in their infant formula.

Manufacturers also create brand loyalty and recognition by making the labels of their toddler milk look similar to their infant formula. For parents who used infant formula, toddler milk is positioned as the next stage in feeding.

How toddler milk became so popular

Toddler milk is heavily marketed. Parents are told toddler milk is healthy and provides extra nutrition. Marketing tells parents it will benefit their child’s growth and development, their brain function and their immune system.

Toddler milk is also presented as a solution to fussy eating, which is common in toddlers.

However, regularly drinking toddler milk could increase the risk of fussiness as it reduces opportunities for toddlers to try new foods. It’s also sweet, needs no chewing, and essentially displaces energy and nutrients that whole foods provide.

Growing concern

The WHO, along with public health academics, has been raising concerns about the marketing of toddler milk for years.

In Australia, moves to curb how toddler milk is promoted have gone nowhere. Toddler milk is in a category of foods that are allowed to be fortified (to have vitamins and minerals added), with no marketing restrictions. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission also has concerns about the rise of toddler milk marketing. Despite this, there is no change in how it’s regulated.

This is in contrast to voluntary marketing restrictions in Australia for infant formula.

What needs to happen?

There is enough evidence to show the marketing of commercial milk formula, including toddler milk, influences parents and undermines child health.

So governments need to act to protect parents from this marketing, and to put child health over profits.

Public health authorities and advocates, including us, are calling for the restriction of marketing (not selling) of all formula products for infants and toddlers from birth through to age three years.

Ideally, this would be mandatory, government-enforced marketing restrictions as opposed to industry self-regulation in place currently for infant formulas.

We musn’t blame parents

Toddlers are eating more processed foods (including toddler milk) than ever because time-poor parents are seeking a convenient option to ensure their child is getting adequate nutrition.

Formula manufacturers have used this information, and created a demand for an unnecessary product.

Parents want to do the best for their toddlers, but they need to know the marketing behind toddler milks is misleading.

Toddler milk is an unnecessary, unhealthy, expensive product. Toddlers just need whole foods and breastmilk, and/or cow’s milk or a non-dairy, milk alternative.

If parents are worried about their child’s eating, they should see a health-care professional.

Anthea Rhodes, a paediatrician from Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, co-authored this article.

Jennifer McCann, Lecturer Nutrition Sciences, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University; Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, and Naomi Hull, PhD candidate, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.