Do kids grow out of insomnia?

Insomnia might sound like an adult problem, but many kids experience insomnia symptoms, and new research suggests that most symptomatic children will continue to have trouble in their teen years or beyond. How do experts define insomnia? Who is at higher risk for developing symptoms? And what can we do to prevent lasting sleep problems? Here’s an overview of the evidence.


young girl in bed at night awake, under a blanket, rubbing her eyes while looking at a phone screen

From childhood through adolescence, it’s not unusual for an individual to experience symptoms of insomnia — trouble initiating sleep, and/or trouble staying asleep.

For example, in a study of 700 children from the United States, ages 5-12, about 20% of them experienced these parent-reported insomnia symptoms (Calhoun et al 2014). In a study of more than 4,000 older kids, ages 11-17, researchers found that about 25% were experiencing one or more symptoms of insomnia (Roberts et al 2008). Similar rates of adolescent insomnia symptoms have been reported in European countries (Ohayon et al 2000; Hysing et al 2013).

If kids show some symptoms of insomnia does that mean they have an insomnia disorder? Can children be diagnosed with insomnia?

Yes, kids do get diagnosed with insomnia. But diagnosis depends on more than having symptoms. To establish if a child’s problems rise to the level of being a sleep disorder, many doctors use the criteria set out in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). According to this medical resource,  an individual needs to show all of these signs (American Psychiatric Association 2013):

  • you have difficulty initiating sleep, maintaining sleep, or awakening too early for at least three nights per week for at least 3 months;
  • you are dissatisfied with the quality or quantity of sleep that you get;
  • your troubles aren’t sufficiently explained by a coexisting mental disorder or medical condition (like depression) , or by another sleep disorder (like a circadian rhythm disorder or sleep-related breathing disorder), or by the physiological effects of a substance (like caffeine);
  • you are experiencing “clinically significant” impairment or distress as a result of your sleep difficulties; and
  • your sleep problems persist despite the fact that you are getting adequate opportunities for sleep.

But there are other clinical definitions, and some don’t demand quite as long a duration of symptoms. For instance, in a previous edition of the DSM, the symptoms needed to persist for only a month.

What about the youngest children? Can an infant or toddler have insomnia?

There’s no question that infants and toddlers can display symptoms of insomnia, and some of these children receive a formal diagnosis.

Perhaps the most common diagnosis is “behavioral insomnia of childhood,” where either (1) children have learned to associate falling asleep with certain conditions (like the presence of a parent), and can’t fall asleep without those conditions in place, or (2) families are struggling with limit-setting, so that kids have settled into a habit of resisting or delaying sleep at bedtime (Ophoff et al 2018).

In addition, some young children may suffer from”psychophysiological insomnia,” where they are too anxious, emotional, or physiologically aroused to sleep well. The trouble here is that kids learn to associate nighttime with these feelings, so that they are effectively conditioned to become hyper-aroused when bedtime approaches (Ophoff et al 2018).

Are boys and girls equally likely to suffer from symptoms of insomnia?

It’s not clear if there are sleep-related sex differences when children are young. But as kids approach adolescence, things change.

You can see this in the first study I mentioned above, where researchers found that about 20% of children ages 5-12 were experiencing insomnia symptoms. Drill down by age and sex (assigned at birth), and you’ll notice a marked difference among 11- and 12-year-olds: Whereas boys this age had a 17% change of experiencing insomnia symptoms, for girls, the rate was 30% (Calhoun et al 2014).

Similarly, in a study of more than 10,000 teenagers living in Norway, researchers uncovered a pronounced sex difference. Using the “at least 3 nights per week, for at least 3 months” rule, researchers found that about 12.5% of teen boys had insomnia. By contrast, nearly 24% of teen girls did (Hysing et al 2013).

Such trends have been documented in other studies, and they continue throughout adulthood. Females experience higher rates of insomnia, beginning around the time they start having menstrual cycles (Dorsey et al 2020; Falch-Madsen et al 2021).

Why? Women are also more likely than men to experience depression and anxiety, and these mental health problems are associated with insomnia. So it’s possible that the cultural and social aspects of gender are leading to higher rates of mental health problems, and these problems, in turn, are contributing to higher rates of insomnia (Zeng et al 2020).

But when researchers have controlled for psychological status, they have still found that females experience higher rates of insomnia. Moreover, women’s sleep problems tend to increase when ovarian hormones are fluctuating (over the menstrual cycle, and during distinct life events, like puberty, pregnancy, and menopause). And there is research on nonhuman animals linking sex differences in sleep with sex hormones and sex chromosomes (Dib et al 2021). So sex differences in insomnia risk may not be entirely social or cultural in nature. They may also reflect biological factors (Dorsey et al 2020; Lindberg et al 1997).

If a child has insomnia symptoms, can we expect them to go away on their own?

This is the question that many parents wonder about. Will my child “grow out” of insomnia? Unfortunately, the best available evidence doesn’t provide us with a crystal ball. For some kids, insomnia will go away. For others, it will come and go intermittently. And for a sizeable portion of kids, insomnia symptoms will continue — persistently — into adulthood.

The latest evidence comes from a 15-year-long study conducted by Julio Fernandez-Mendoza and his colleagues (Calhoun et al 2017; Fernandez-Mendoza et al 2022).

The team began by randomly selecting 500 children, ranging between 7 and 9 years old, from a large, representative sample living in Pennsylvania. The kids spent the night in a sleep laboratory, permitting the researchers to measure sleep objectively (using polysomnography techniques).

In addition, the researchers asked parents if the kids either (1) had trouble falling asleep, or (2) wakes up often in the night. A child was classified as having insomnia symptoms if a parent said one or both of these were happening either “often” or “very often” (Calhoun et al 2017).

In this way, the researchers had a baseline for all the kids in the study, and that baseline was in keeping with the trends we’ve noted so far. About 24% of the kids were identified as having insomnia symptoms.

What next? This long-term study went into standby mode until the kids were in their mid-teens, at which point they were invited back for another round of sleep polysomnography and interviews. Then there was another break in data collection until the study participants were approximately 24 years old. For this final check-in, people didn’t sleep overnight in the lab, but they filled out a survey about their recent sleep habits.

How prevalent were insomnia symptoms during the teen years? During young adulthood? Approximately 36% of study participants were having symptoms around the age of 16, and nearly 42% reported insomnia symptoms during the adult check-in.

But the goal of this study wasn’t to obtain a series of statistical snapshots. What researchers really wanted to know is if insomnia “sticks” with an individual over time. So they looked at each child’s trajectory across the 15 year period. Here’s what they found.

Among the individuals who had insomnia symptoms at the first time point (7 to 9 years old), approximately 54% were still struggling with these symptoms during their teen years. In addition, almost 62% of the kids who had shown early symptoms (pre-adolescence) reported insomnia symptoms as adults.

And here’s another way to look at it. Across all time points, there were four different trajectories possible for kids with insomnia symptoms. They broke down this way, in order of their frequency:

  • Persistent insomnia. 43% of kids who started out with insomnia symptoms were also symptomatic in their teens and during adulthood.
  • Remission. 27% of the kids got better. They didn’t report insomnia symptoms during the teen check-in or during the adult check-in.
  • Waxing-and-waning. 19% of the kids improved during the teen years, but resumed having insomnia symptoms as adults.
  • Persistent insomnia during childhood and adolescence only. This represented the smallest portion of kids with early symptoms. About 11% continued to have symptoms in adolescence, but were reported symptom-free during the adult check-in.

On the flip side, the researchers looked at kids who didn’t show any insomnia symptoms at baseline. What happened to them over time?

  • Persistent normal sleep. 48% of the kids who began the study without insomnia symptoms remained symptom-free throughout all time points. Hooray!
  • Persistent normal sleep through adolescence only. About 21% continued to report normal sleep in adolescence, but then went on to experience insomnia symptoms as adults.
  • Waxing and waning. 16%  of the good sleepers developed insomnia symptoms as teenagers, and then reverted to normal sleep during adulthood.
  • Persistent insomnia after adolescent onset. 15% of the kids who started out with normal sleep experienced insomnia symptoms during both the teen check-in and the adult check-in.

It’s a lot of interesting information to absorb, and it includes the good news that some kids either improve over time, or never develop insomnia symptoms at all. But the most important takeaway is this: When a child has insomnia symptoms, we shouldn’t assume this is a passing phase. There’s a good chance that the sleep troubles will persist.

Which kids are at higher risk for persistent or recurring insomnia symptoms?

As noted earlier, we know that females are more likely than males to experience symptoms of insomnia. We also know that insomnia is associated with mood disorders, like depression and anxiety. Other groups at higher risk for insomnia include people of lower socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial minorities, individuals who are obese, and folks who are “evening types,” also known as “night owls.”

When Fernandez-Mendoza and his colleagues sifted through their data, they found that all of these factors increase the likelihood that a child with insomnia symptoms will experience persistence (Fernandez-Mendoza et al 2021; 2022).

But they noted another important factor as well: How much total sleep a child got. The researchers had collected objective sleep data in the lab, if you’ll remember. So they knew what the average (mean) sleep duration was for these kids (about 7 hours, 42 minutes), and the researchers identified anybody who slept less than that average as a “short sleeper.”

What does it matter, sleeping less than average for a child your age? If you also have symptoms of insomnia, it means quite a lot. A child with symptoms who nonetheless gets the normal amount of sleep has about 60% higher odds of experiencing adult insomnia. But if that child is also a short sleeper? Now her odds are 260% higher.

And whereas the odds of adult insomnia increase rather modestly (by just 20%) for a symptomatic teen who gets sufficient sleep, they jump dramatically for short sleepers. In this study, teens with symptoms of insomnia who slept less than average had more than 5.5 times the odds of ending up with adult insomnia.

What should we do about it?

You might have heard that insomnia “runs in the family,” and there’s truth to that. In addition to all the social variables we’ve discussed, genetic factors play a role in the development of insomnia. They also increase the chances that you’ll be a night owl, or that you will sleep fewer hours than others your age.

But that doesn’t mean that persistent insomnia symptoms are inevitable. Far from it. It’s a common misunderstanding that you can’t modify something has a genetic or biological basis. On the contrary, if your child is struggling with insomnia symptoms, the more accurate and helpful way to think this is this: There’s a good chance my kid is susceptible to developing long-term problems, so it’s especially important for me to teach my child strategies for healthy sleep.

And this may be especially true if your child isn’t logging very much sleep time overall.

So if your child has symptoms of insomnia — or seems to be a short sleeper — talk to your medical provider. And you might find it helpful to read my Parenting Science articles about sleep.

In my article about bedtime problems, I go over the most common sources of trouble, and how to cope with them. There you’ll find advice for countering any bad mental habits your child has learned (such as associating bedtime with frustration or anxiety). You’ll also find links to my article about how to reset your child’s internal clock so he or she will feel sleepier earlier in the night, and how to gradually — and effectively — shift your child to an earlier bedtime.

In addition, you may be interested in these Parenting Science articles about sleep:


References: Do kids grow out of insomnia?

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image of girl in bed at night by graphicnoi / istock

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