A practical approach to sleeping difficulties in children

Send us Fan MailA child who “won’t sleep” can trigger the fastest reflex in medicine: write a script and hope tonight is easier. We slow that moment right down and show why the quick fix often misses the real problem. Kids run shorter sleep cycles than adults, so brief overnight arousals are normal. The difference between a settled house and a 2 am crisis is whether the child can resettle independently or needs the exact same sleep onset association they had at bedtime.We break paediatric sleep into three clear clinical buckets: insomnia (often behavioural insomnia of childhood), parasomnias (including how to tell sleep terrors from nightmares), and sleep disordered breathing (from snoring through to obstructive sleep apnoea). You’ll hear the practical screening questions we use, including the BEARS tool, plus what matters most in history, when a sleep diary is enough, and when you actually need polysomnography or ferritin testing.Then we get hands-on with strategies that work in real homes: tightening sleep hygiene, using the bedtime pass for limit setting, and gradual withdrawal methods like checking, camping out, and graduated extinction while preparing families for the extinction burst. We also clarify where melatonin fits in Australia as a prescription-only medicine: useful for circadian delay and some neurodivergent kids, but not a solution for overnight waking without self-settling skills. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a tired parent or clinician, and leave a review with the sleep question you want answered next.Support the show⚠️ Disclaimer: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. This content is produced for entertainment and learning purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Clinical decisions should always be made in accordance with current guidelines, individual patient circumstances, and in consultation with appropriate colleagues and specialists.