Understand and solve your child's sleep problems

Sleep problems are one of the most common and certainly exhausting problems most parents face. Children do not always need as much sleep as their parents do, even though many people assume all children need 12 hours’ sleep each night.

Indeed, each child’s sleep needs vary - one may regularly sleep 11 or 12 hours each night while another needs only nine hours’ sleep. There are some children, usually the very active and alert, need much less sleep, which can put enormous strain on their parents.

Settling to sleep at night and waking during the night is the most common sleep problem for children aged between one to two-and-a-half years. Most children who have difficulty getting off to sleep early, and go to sleep late, will then sleep soundly until morning.

Others will be difficult to settle and wake again in the night. This is exhausting and frustrating to a parent.

Bedtime routine

It’s important to establish a bedtime routine from early on - perhaps supper, bath time, then story - always allowing time to quieten down and unwind after the day’s activities.

Many children need special routines to help them settle to sleep - some will only sleep if a parent stays with them, others fall asleep on a sofa, others need the same song or story every night.

A dim light, a musical box or cassette, favourite toys in bed, all help to make bedtime comforting and falling asleep easier. It helps to make your child’s cot or bed a special place with favourite pictures and toys around.

Triggers

Waking at night can be triggered off by an illness (such as ear infection), or by a major change, such as going into hospital. It can also be a symptom of anxiety, such as separation anxiety.

It is often difficult for a child to express the cause of her anxiety, but time spent trying to understand it is helpful. You may then be able to reassure the child that all is well, and helping her express her fears and anxieties can help solve the sleep problem.

Where family rows or tensions are contributing, they need attention before tackling the sleep problem. The most important thing in coping is to be consistent; if you leave your child alone to cry one night, then take her into your bed the next night, you’re giving conflicting messages which will confuse her and the problem will continue.

Often, simple manoeuvres will help, such as cutting down on daytime sleep, and giving warm milky drinks at bedtime.

How you react when she wakes up is important. If she is picked up, cuddled, talked to and given a bottle, she feels nice and will probably be encouraged to wake again as it reinforces the habit. The less you interact with a child that wakes, the sooner she will learn that it is not worth waking you.

Try keeping talking to a minimum, and don’t pick her up or play, but gently and firmly tuck the child up and settle her back to sleep.

Help and advice

Time off from a persistently waking child is important when you are exhausted. Send her for a night with a grandparent or friend.

If she sleeps through the night, you may feel guilty and wonder if it is your fault the child is waking - the answer is no, parents are not responsible for children waking, but a child may not cry out if she knows her parents are not there to come to her!