Sleep problems may also be symptoms of emotional difficulties. For normal young children, bedtime is a time of separation. Some children will do all they can to prevent that separation. To help minimize these types of common sleep problems, mental health professionals recommend that parents be consistent. They should view sleep as a useful habit and develop regular routines.
Parents often find that feeding and rocking help an infant to get to sleep.
However, as the child leaves infancy, parents should encourage the child to sleep without feeding and rocking. Otherwise, the developing child may have a hard time going to sleep alone. Nightmares are relatively common. The child remembers nightmares, which usually involve major threats to the child's well-being. Nightmares, which begin at a variety of ages, affect girls more often than boys.