Sleep is a more important basic requirement than food or water but our children are not getting enough. The effects of this could be harmful, a sleep expert warns. Australian researcher Dr Sarah Blunden has a message for parents: "It's time to make sleep a major priority in all households. Without sleep, nothing else in the body works." Dr Blunden says. " Everyone needs sleep, but children really need it for their growing brain". " I want to make people understand that it is very detrimental to everybody if they continue to not get enough sleep over a long period." Dr Blunden says "US studies have found that children are sleeping on average 30 minutes less today than they were 20 years ago. That may not sound like like much but she also cites recent alarming research that found a loss of just one hour's sleep a night for primary school children is the equivalent to knocking off two years in cognitive ability. What this means is that a Year 6 student deprived of one hour sleep nightly will, unfortunately, perform at the same level as a Year 4 student."

While they're sleeping- Primary school kids need a bare minimum of 10 hours sleep a night - Dr Blunden says 12 hours would be preferable, because there's a lot going on in a childs' brains while they sleep. Sleep experts agree that during sleep the brain restores itself, growth hormones are released, memories are consolidated and unnecessary memories are dumped. Insufficent sleep has been linked with behavioural problems, learning difficulties, poorer grades at school, increased likelihood of accidents and even childhood obesity.

So why the reduced snooze? Many studies and sleep experts point the finger of blame directly at the prevalence of TVs and computers and our busy lives. "I'm not saying all television is bad - for some families watching TV together is family time," Dr Blunden says. "But the amount and the content need to be strictly monitored by parents." Children should be stopped from watching TV, using the computer and playing video games for at least an hour before bedtime, she says. In the wake of the recent natural disasters, wars and nuclear meltdowns, the Australian Council on Children and the Media has warned of the impact on kids watching endless distressing news footage. Stories of children being injured or separated from their parents, death of family pets and interviews with emotionally distraught or shocked adults and children can make their world feel more unsafe than it really is," says council spokesman and child psychologist Dr Wayne Warburton. This "unsafe" feeling or anixiety can greatly upset childrens sleep patterns, making it much harder for them to get to sleep easily or even more prone to nightmares.

Making changes Dr Blunden believes children are gettiing to bed to late because with so many parents working long hours it can be difficult for families to fit in dinner, time together, homework and other activites and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. "Sleep is our most basic of needs, yet it's not given the priority it deserves," she says. "If we were to make sleep a priority, it may require us to rearrange our lives but the benefits for everyone will be worth it."

Did you know? Teenagers need at least 9 and 1/4 hours' sleep at night but recent US study found the average for 13 to 18 year olds was less than 7 and 1/2 hours- a sleep debt of about 50 hours a month.