Official medical records showed doctors issued more than 800,000 prescriptions for drugs called hypnotics - sleeping tablets and liquid medicine - to under-16s.

This included almost 80,000 to those five and under, due to what is known as "generation anxiety" - struggling to cope with the pressures of modern life.

Experts claim social media, worries about the cost of living, disruption to education and concerns for the future have all fed a toxic cocktail of worries, leaving youngsters battling to get to sleep.

It comes as separate statistics show hundreds of children and teenagers in England are being admitted to hospital with sleep disorders.

Conditions such as insomnia have risen sharply.

Guidelines say doctors should not prescribe hypnotics to children unless it is for the short-term treatment of night terrors or sleepwalking.

But NHS figures revealed there were 810,823 prescriptions issued to children for this type of medicine last year, which is a rise of 13 per cent on the 716,464 in the previous 12 months.

Children aged 11 and 12, who were struggling with the transition from primary to secondary school, were most frequently given
hypnotic medications, although most of these youngsters will have been given lower-strength medications than those issued to adults.

Dr Susie Davies, a GP and the founder of Parents Against Phone Addiction in Young Adolescents, said: "The figures show a worrying increase in the use of hypnotics, a potentially highly addictive sleep medication.

"Even more significant is understanding the root cause of this rise.

"Given what we know about the impact of screens on sleep disruption, and the alarming fact 73 per cent of teens take their phones to bed, the evidence suggests screen use is a major contributing factor."

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology and the author of Paranoid Parenting, said: "These days, all the normal troubles of childhood are diagnosed as a medical problem and youngsters are put on medication."