Many childhood sleep problems are related to irregular sleep habits or to anxiety about going to bed and falling asleep. Sleep problems may also be symptoms of emotional difficulties. To help minimize these types of common sleep problems, a parent can develop consistent and regular sleep routines for children.
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 will 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 being at a variety of ages, affect girls more often than boys.