Sleeping behaviour

Some empirically supported behavioural treatments exist for bedtime problems and night waking in infants and young children. These include extinction, scheduled awakenings, positive routines, bedtime fading, positive reinforcement and parent education. In particular, when parents learn early on how to manage their child’s sleep and to regulate breastfeeding to optimize the duration of the sleep, it can help with the child’s sleep development and may prevent sleep disorders.

Behavioural therapy can benefit both parent and child. Successful behavioural therapy has repeatedly been associated with reduced child problem behaviour and improved parental mental health or marital satisfaction. In view of the diverse benefits of effective treatment, researchers suggest that health systems should create innovative ways to support cross-disciplinary treatment approaches that are most likely to be cost-effective to society over the long term.

Child sleep disorders occur frequently enough that they constitute a serious public health problem. Accordingly, researchers argue that policy-makers should invest in epidemiological studies of children’s day/night rhythms (the structure of their sleep and their daytime behaviour) and promote educational programs that begin in early pregnancy to prevent sleep disorders in newborns.

By focusing on education, prevention and appropriate treatment approaches (both behavioural and medical), we can help ensure that children’s sleep problems are recognized, diagnosed and appropriately treated. Society needs to balance its focus between the sleeping and waking halves of children’s lives – and recognize and understand the connection between the two.