Treatment of behavioural sleep problems : asking the parents

Background: Behavioural sleep interventions, which can have significant mental health benefits for parents, are commonly and successfully utilised to teach children to self soothe at night. In most methods offered in South Australia, these often require parent(s) to ignore their child’s cries for extended periods, a technique parents may find difficult. It is important to understand why parents find this difficult as this impact on intervention compliance. This paper presents pilot data from two studies to address these issues.Methods: Study 1: As part of a larger clinical trial, 73 families of sleep disturbed (aged 8-51 months) children who had previously attempted ignoring their child’s cries, anonymously and voluntarily commented on their experiences and success of a technique that did not ignore their child’s cries (3-4 week previously published behavioural based sleep intervention). Study 2: Those comments were used to conduct and further explore in an online anonymous survey, parental opinions of sleep intervention techniques and sleep disturbance. Parents (n=104) were asked if and why they would or had used techniques that included ignoring their baby’s cries, specifically “controlled crying”.Results: All parents in Study 1 reported significantly reduced sleep disturbance (p<0.001) and high satisfaction (Mean (SD) score of 4.3, range 2-5). Thematic analyses suggested parents found this method was successful and achievable and respectful of both children’s emotions and parental choices because they did not need to ignore their baby’s cries. In Study 2, 72% of parents would not use or continue to use controlled crying methods. Those parents who used controlled crying were more likely to be outcomes focussed whereas those who did not were likely to be emotionally focussed.Conclusions: This study gives valuable information about parental opinion of common behavioural sleep interventions. Although small and selective samples, it is the first time parental opinion has been explored and is therefore an important addition to the field. If larger more rigid studies confirm these findings, this will inform how best to optimise the delivery of and compliance with sleep interventions.