The fact that infants spend more time in sleep than in wakefulness during the first 3 years of their life suggests that sleep plays a more crucial role during this age period. Sleep is important for physical recuperation, physical growth, the immune system, brain development, learning, memory, and information processing as well as many other systems of the brain and the human body.

Sleepless infants

Infants who don't get enough sleep or sleep poorly are often characterized by difficult temperament and as highly stressful to their parents. Babies may suffer from their poor sleep quality and from the adverse responses of their exhausted and inpatient parents.

Contrary to a widely held belief, if not treated, more than 50% of the babies who suffer from sleep problems continue to suffer from sleep problems when they grow up to the preschool and school age periods. Many studies show that parents can improve their infants' sleep quite rapidly and significantly with the help of professionals or information they obtain from parenting magazines or books on infant sleep. It has been shown that parents can benefit from learning about infant sleep when they are expecting a baby and later prevent the occurrence of sleep problems from the early days of their baby's life.

It is estimated that 20-30% of the children suffer from common sleep problems in the first 3 years of life.

• Night-wakings - The most prevalent complaint. The baby wakes up many times during the night for short or extended periods.



• Difficulty falling asleep - The baby requires long and often highly demanding rituals to fall asleep.



• Inappropriate sleep schedule - the child falls asleep at inappropriate hours and cannot sleep during more appropriate hours of the night.



• Nightmares - the child wakes up frightened but responds quickly to the parents and calm down with their help.



• Night terrors - the child wakes up in a terrible scream, appears terrorized with eyes open or close and does not seem to respond to the parents or even resists their intervention.



• Fierce rocking and head banging - the child uses body rocking and head banging in the transition to sleep or during the night.



• Breathing problems during sleep - the child has repeated breathing cessations or difficulties during sleep.

A non-prevalent event but a very prevalent concern of parents during the first year of the baby's life is the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome which relates to the occurrence of infant death during sleep without any explainable cause.

Developing Good Sleep Habits

• Help your baby to learn to distinguish between daytime and nighttime hours. This can be achieved by keeping your child's room dark and quiet at night, and refraining from involving the child in social activity at inappropriate hours.



• Create a ritual or permanent pattern of behavior before bedtime. This can include bathing, feeding, a story or music and other calming behaviors or ideas about "quality time."



• Try to end all social rituals, pampering and feeding before the baby is put into her crib to go to sleep. Encourage your child to fall asleep in his/her crib from a wakeful state even when it involves a brief "protest."



• Try to learn to identify your baby's symptoms of tiredness and respond appropriately to her sleepiness signs and rhythms. Changes in the timing of sleep or other considerations can be made gradually and at a very slow pace, and not during drastic and short interventions.



• Refrain from exaggerated and quick reactions to light crying or other forms of protest during the baby's falling asleep process. In many cases, briefly waiting will end in the baby's falling asleep without help.



• If you enjoy communal sleeping with the baby when she's young, do it happily and out of free choice. It is desirable to refrain from developing this pattern as a response to the baby's sleep problems if you don't want it to develop into a rigid pattern that will be hard to change later.



• It is very desirable to refrain from giving sweet food and drink during the night. There is no need for parents to purposely wake-up their babies for feedings if the babies are healthy and well-developing. Their sense of hunger will self-regulate their schedule.



• The baby's daytime naps do not usually influence her nighttime sleep (other than if they take place late in the evening), and therefore, try not to prevent their occurrence. In most cases, inappropriate prevention of naps would lead to more severe problems at night.

Special information links

Stress, Trauma and Sleep in Children (133kb) - A scientific paper, written by Avi Sadeh, describing the links between stress trauma and sleep in infants and children.

Cultural Influences on Infant Sleep - A scientific paper, written by James Mckenna, describing the links between stress trauma and sleep in infants and children.

Interventions for Infant and Toddler Sleep Disturbance: A Review - A scientific paper, written by Brett R. Kuhn and Deb Weidinger reviewing interventions for sleep-disturbed infants.

REVIEW ARTICLE: Infant sleep disturbance: Description of a problem behaviour process. - A Scientific paper written by Karyn G France, Neville M Blampied. Published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1999. Free access to PDF file - Courtesy of Sleep Medicine Review.

REVIEW ARTICLE: Behavioural and cognitive-behavioural interventions for sleep disorders in infants and children: A review. - A Scientific paper written by Laurence J Owens, Karyn G France, Luci Wiggs. Published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1999. Free access to PDF file - Courtesy of Sleep Medicine Review.

REVIEW ARTICLE: Sleep apnea in infants. - A Scientific paper written by Claude Gaultier. Published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1999. Free access to PDF file - Courtesy of Sleep Medicine Review.

Important Sleep Websites

The National Sleep Foundation website

Talk About Sleep

SleepNet.com