The effect of improving sleep hygiene on nutritional behavior in toddlers

Introduction: Nutrition and sleep are two important behaviors in human health, especially in children. The nutrition behavior of the children determines his or her food intake. Although there is no immediate risk to their health, the 20 percent prevalence of eating problems in children makes them vulnerable to unhealthy diet. Children sleep problem is taken into consideration because of their potential effects on health, especially on nutritional behavior at this age. Therefore, in order to improve the nutrition behavior of toddler, sleep hygiene was educated to mothers based on planned behavior. Method : This interventional study was performed in Razan city of Hamadan province. Eighty mothers with toddlers (12- 36 months) were selected by multistage random sampling with written consent. Mothers were divided into two groups, each with 40 subjects (experimental and control). The mothers of the experimental group participated in 5 sessions of child sleep education class, each session lasting 2 hours. Data were collected at the beginning of the study and after educational intervention by the health center administrator using ORI-CEBI questionnaire and CSHQ. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 21 using paired t-test, chi-square and Fisher s exact test. Results : Children mean age was 22.82 ± 7.53 month and 55 percent was boy. After the intervention, the sleep problems of the experimental group were significantly reduced in the experimental group (P< 0/001), in this group, there was a positive and direct correlation between the mean scores of child resistance to going to bed and children tension in food time (P< 0/001). Sleep hygiene education has reinforced this correlation by reducing child sleep problems. Conclusion : Children sleep hygiene includes environmental and behavioral factors this can improve sleep quality by reducing sleep problems. In this study, sleep hygiene education to mothers by improving toddler sleep resulted in reduced toddler tension in food time and improved toddler nutrition behavior. Therefore, it seems that attention to sleep hygiene may be a way to improve nutritional behavior in toddlers.

کلیدواژه ها:

sleep hygiene ، children nutrition behavior ، education ، toddler