YOUR CHILD’S HEALTH: SLEEP PROBLEMS

Sleep problems are often related to other behavioural difficulties, especially in the toddler age group. Often, the child has never established a predictable pattern of sleep, or else has learnt to become dependent on the parents for attention during own, but have fallen asleep at the breast or while being cuddled by one or other parent. Other babies who wake during the night, as is quite normal, have never learnt how to get themselves back to sleep. In fact, they have never had to, because if they wake during the night one or other parent will always be there to give them a feed, or a cuddle, or otherwise comfort them. In this way parents inadvertently make things difficult for themselves by reinforcing the very behaviours that they find so problematic.

A child’s sleep patterns will vary according to a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including his temperament. There is no doubt that some babies with a ‘difficult temperament’ profile — that is intense, active, babies who have difficulty getting into a rhythm — are much more likely to have erratic, difficult-to-manage sleep patterns. It is equally true that whether or not a child has significant sleep problems is very much a consequence of the transactions between the child and his parents. This then becomes a very important factor in planning intervention and treatment programs, which focus on changing parental reaction to the child’s sleep patterns.

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