Parents, please note! Your babies' genes will determine whether they sleep soundly through the night, according to a new study.
However, children's ability to nap during the day is controlled more by their environment, researchers found.
Scientists in Canada studied sleep records from nearly 1,000 identical and fraternal twins in Quebec, and found that genes largely determine whether children sleep through the night, 'MyHealthNewsDaily' reported.
"The genetic influence is only part of the equation that controls sleep duration. One should not give up on trying correcting inadequate sleep duration or bad sleep habits early in childhood," said study author Evelyne Touchette, a psychology researcher at Laval University in Quebec.
There is a particularly sensitive time for the influence of parental interventions, at around 18 months, Touchette said.
"This is a good time to implement sleep strategies in order to improve the child's nighttime sleep habits if they are not already in place," she said.
In the study, the researchers did not look for specific genes associated with sleep, rather they looked at whether identical twins were more likely than fraternal twins to share sleep patterns.
The new study found 4 per cent of children had stopped napping by age 4, but that number was 68 per cent in a similar study from Italy, showing culture has some impact on nap times.
"From about [6 months], I recommend putting children to bed when they are drowsy but still awake, so that they can develop appropriate sleep-onset associations and learn to fall asleep on their own," Touchette said.
