When a child has difficulty sleeping, it means the whole household has difficulty sleeping which can lead to a tired, irritable family. Children may have problems getting to sleep or may wake periodically throughout the night. The child may catch up on sleep during the day or may seem to require much less sleep than the rest of the family.
Many children display behavioural problems during the day purely because of tiredness and a lack of sleep during the night.
Often sleep problems can be rectified with behavioural interventions, sometimes even a small change can make a big difference. It is easy to ‘give in’ to behaviours in the night in order to settle the child for the whole house to get some sleep.