IT IS a time parents relish: their child’s afternoon nap. But it seems that napping may not be such a good idea after all. Preliminary studies suggest that daytime napping in young children may be linked to poorer sleep and mental functioning than in their peers who only sleep at night. The big question is whether napping is the cause of the problem, or the result.
John Harsh at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and his colleagues asked the parents of 738 children aged between 2 and 12 about their children’s sleeping habits. Children who took long daytime…
