Infants from 4 to 11 months are said to need 12 to 15 hours, toddlers (1 to 2 years) 11 to 14 hours, preschoolers (3 to 5 years), 10 to 13 hours.
Parents of children this age will know exactly what happens if their child doesn't get enough sleep. It's not pretty.
School-age children (6-13) need 9-11 hours.
Then we get to teenagers. Now, you would be forgiven for thinking that some teenagers need 16 hours sleep because they are hard to get out of bed in the morning, but no, they need less than 4 and 5-year-olds who bounce out of bed ready to take on the world.
Eight to 10 hours is sufficient for your average teen.
Young adults (18-25) require seven to nine hours while adults aged from 26 to 64 need the same amount. Over 65 is only one hour less at seven to eight hours.
So there you go. I had the impression that when I got older I'd be able to survive on five to six hours a night.
More time to read I thought. But apparently that's not going to happen and what's more if depriving myself of sleep results in what happened to me last Sunday morning I'll not be doing it again in a hurry.
My eldest daughter and her friend (they have been friends since primary school) celebrated a special birthday.
What a party. The pair have a fantastic group of mutual friends who frequented my Dannevirke home for years.
I watched these girls grow from schoolchildren to teenagers to young women.
It was so nice to catch up with these young women, most of them mothers themselves.
I was talking to one of them about climbing out the bedroom window and she said "we could have gone out the door but it was so much more fun to go out the window".
That sums them up really - they had fun, and they have all grown into gorgeous young ladies who still know how to party.
We laughed, talked, ate drank and danced. In the early hours of the next morning I finally got to bed. My Fitbit said I'd already done a 47-minute workout for the day. Must do more dancing.
So sleep deprived and a little bit thirsty the next morning I went about my day - very slowly. I might not need much more sleep than a teenager but my body sure tells me I'm not young any more.
It took me three days to recover.
As for Mr Neat well he must have been very tired because he couldn't get out of bed until late afternoon - it may have something to do with the "breakdancing" he was doing.
FOOTNOTE: I read in one of those beauty tip columns that you can store up your sleep. It said if you are planning a late night than go to bed a couple of hours early for a few nights prior and bingo you have all that extra sleep up your sleeve. Like a sleep bank that you can draw on - wonder if you can do that with exercise.
- Linda Hall is assistant editor of Hawke's Bay Today
