Repeated sleepless or broken nights are one of the biggest sources of stress for parents of young children.  Many babies and toddlers sleep less than the accepted norm, but as long as they are happy during their waking hours and do not seem unwell, they do not need medical attention.

There are several things you can do to try to improve sleep problems:

• Try to introduce a regular bedtime routine.  The actual shape of the routine is entirely up to you, but it could include a bath, story and cuddle.  Using the same routine every night will encourage your child to settle down more readily.
• Don’t feel guilty if your child has a sleep problem. There is no evidence that parents cause children to wak, though you learn ways of coping better if they do.
• Don’t rush in if you hear your child stir in the night. Children tend to wake more frequently than adults anyway, and will often cry out, roll over and go back to sleep again.  If from the start you rush in, put the light on, and check that your child is all right, then he or she will almost certainly wake completely.
• Don’t use cough medicines or antihistamines as sedatives.  They do not work, are potentially dangerous and will leave your child miserable the next day.
• Try not to feed a baby to sleep.  If a baby is always fed to sleep, he learns that he needs something in his mouth to settle, so if he wakes he is likely to cry until given a bottle or breast.  By gently waking a baby at the end of a feed and then lying him down, he will learn to be able to sleep without the feed continuing and so will be less likely to cry out on waking.
  

Last Updated: August 14, 2007