Navigating Sleep Challenges in Childhood

When neurologist and sleep specialist Dr. Chris Winter sees adult patients in his sleep clinic, they often come to him because of a struggle with insomnia, which, as he described in a previous appearance on the AoM podcast, is caused by stressing too much about sleep, so that going to bed becomes an anxious and fear-inducing routine that sabotages the natural needs and rhythms of the sleep cycle.

Chris would see fewer adult patients like this if, when they were kids, their parents set them up to have a healthy relationship with sleep.

How to establish that kind of healthy relationship is something Chris writes about in his latest book, The Rested Child, and is the topic of our conversation today. Chris will take us through what parents should know about their kids' sleep from the womb through young adulthood, with tips on both how to improve your children's sleep, and how to avoid messing it up, including his take on co-sleeping, why he let his kids go to bed whenever they wanted, and why he discourages giving children melatonin to help them sleep.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Chris' last appearance on the show — episode #661: Get Better Sleep By Stressing About It Less
• National Sleep Foundation's graph and write-up of sleep duration recommendations across the lifespan

Connect With Dr. Chris Winter

• Chris on Instagram
• Chris on Twitter