Parents have a variety of complaints about their toddlers. Many toddlers refuse to go to bed at night. They will invent an extraordinary variety of reasons why they should stay up a little longer, and some parents dread the approach of bedtime as they know that they will inevitably get involved in a drawn-out struggle with the child.
Some toddlers are happy enough to go to bed but then refuse to sleep. Again, reasons, all of which, of course, are designed to involve the parents. They may be hungry, thirsty, need to go to the toilet (having just been), are afraid of the dark, or the dog, or something else, or just want to say one last thing to mummy or daddy, or are just not tired, and so on. All parents will be able to add to this list. The one thing that all of these excuses have in common is that they all are intended to involve the parents in giving a response. Indeed, as we shall discuss shortly, it is precisely because the parents respond that these behaviours continue. They are dependent on a response from the parents — once this is not forthcoming, they very quickly stop.
Other toddlers wake during the night, and either call out to their parents or else come out of bed to be with the parents wherever they are, including the parents’ bed. Again the continuation of this behaviour depends on the parents reinforcing it.
Some children have got so used to having a parent present when they go off to sleep that it may be impossible for them to go to sleep alone. The usual scenario is for the child to go to sleep in the parent’s arms, or at the breast, or with the parent lying alongside the child until he falls asleep. While in some families this is the norm, and without saying necessarily that it is wrong or leads to any long-term harm, it does mean that the parents should be resigned to having to be involved with the child falling asleep for a long, long time.
During the toddler period other sleep problems begin to emerge, such as nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking and sleeptalking, as well as fears and phobias that may affect a child’s sleep patterns.
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