Sleep Series E3 | How Do Children Sleep? (w/ Dr Anya McLaren-Barnett)
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What sparked Dr. Anya McLaren‑Barnett’s interest in pediatric sleep medicine?
Hello everyone, my name is Anja. I'm a psychiatry registrar working in South London, and I have a special interest in research related to depression and mood disorders. Today we are meeting with Dr. Anja McLaren Barnett, who is a pediatric, respiratory, and sleep medicine physician. This is another part of our sleep series and if you haven't checked the other episodes out yet there will be a link to them here as well. But for today what we're going to be talking about is all things to do with children's sleep. As well as her clinical work, Dr. Anya is also an assistant professor at the McMaster University, a large tertiary care center for pediatrics, and is the medical director for the Sleep Health Organization.
We hope you enjoy today's podcast. As always, we love to hear from you, so send us a message or send us an email. Otherwise, for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy. Doctor Anya McLaren Barnet. Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Anya. I hope today we can talk about all things to do with sleep when it comes to children, drawing on your expertise as a sleep physician, as and a pediatric respirologist. Hopefully we can talk about what similarities there might be between children's and adult sleep, but I imagine where there are lots of differences, what kind of approaches parents should be aware of. and the kind of work that you do with your sleep health organization as well. How d how did you come to be interested in sleep medicine when it comes to children?
Yeah, this is this takes me all the way back to my training at a hospital for sick children in Toronto, uh, Ontario, Canada. I'm originally Jamaican, but I came to Canada at 18 years old to pursue tertiary level education. And so about halfway through my undergrad degree, I realized that medicine was an area that I wanted to pursue. That brought me to medical school and Residency at a hospital for sick children. As residents, uh, we rotate through different subspecialties. And on my pediatric respiratory medicine rotation, I was really drawn to, I guess, you know, the physiology of respiratory medicine, um, which because my background is in physiology. And I went into I matched into uh respiratory medicine as a sub-specialty of pediatrics after a completely
Completing my pediatric residency. And then during my pediatric residency, my sorry, respiratory medicine fellowship, I was introduced to the world of sleep medicine, which was, I mean, I think it was like really fascinating to me because I think up until then, my knowledge of sleep and the way that I, you know, talked about sleep as a pediatrician was very surface level. And, you know, I'm We'll get into talking a bit more about the fact that sleep and sleep medicine is n or really sleep health, I think, is not really a topic that is very well taught in medical training. And so it it it it was really fascinating to me. And I think part of that fascination also ties back to physiology, understanding, you know, well, I learned and understood that the physiology uh during sleep is very different.
And the physiology during wakefulness. And so by physiology, I mean the functions of the body, the way that we breathe, our heart rate, the fact that our brain is still active and cycling through different stages of sleep. The fact that in pediatric sleep at the time, and this was going all the way back to 2016, was not a field where we knew a lot. So we had some data on what normal pediatric sleep. Was in terms of heart rate, respiratory rate, um, different stages of sleep. But we didn't know a lot. We knew about obstructive sleep apnea and different types of sleep conditions. And so I think I was drawn to the possibility of, well, more the fascination of learning as the field evolved and being able to see during my training the impact that.
That sleep or helping children sleep better had was really profound. And appreciating that all children sleep. In fact, children spend most of their lives in the first five years sleeping. And so appreciating that sleep was such a crucial component of overall health and development, and that it was so easy to impact it and so easy to transform, you know, the trajectory.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What sparked Dr. Anya McLaren‑Barnett’s interest in pediatric sleep medicine?
0:00–8:11
2
How does sleep develop from the womb through the first year of life?
8:11–15:32
3
What are the key differences between infant and child sleep architecture?
15:32–23:33
4
Why are sleep terrors and other parasomnias common in early childhood?
23:33–31:08
5
How do circadian rhythms and melatonin patterns mature in children?
31:08–38:58
6
What strategies does Dr. Anya use to diagnose and treat pediatric insomnia and sleep‑disordered breathing?
38:58–47:15
7
What are the pros and cons of sleep training, co‑sleeping, and melatonin gummies for kids?
47:15–54:16
8
How can parents choose a qualified sleep consultant and what should they look for?
54:16–1:03:29
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