ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Infant and toddler sleep “problems” are among the most commonly reported complaints of parents to their pediatricians (1). In fact, a recently published community survey of mothers in Melbourne, Australia revealed that a full 34% reported a sleep problem in their three-to six-month-old infants; with 31% of these indicating that the problem was “severe” (2). These findings are consistent with classic research into the prevalence of sleep problems in the infant and toddler population, as these studies typically have reported that around 25% of parents indicate that their young children experience some type of sleep disturbance (3-5). Contrary to these data, a large poll conducted in 2004 by the National Sleep Foundation in the United States (6) found that only 6% of parents of infants and 11% of parents of toddlers reported that their child had a sleep problem. In this poll, parents were more likely to report a sleep problem if their child slept significantly less than his/her peers, took 30 minutes or longer to fall asleep, or woke up two or more times per night. Differences in prevalence rates found between studies may be due to the sampling methods used. The Sleep in America poll randomly sampled households with a child under the age of 10, while most other investigations that report prevalence rates recruited families for a study specifically related to sleep. It is possible that families who sign up for such studies may already have a problem with their child’s sleep, thus possibly inflating the prevalence rates obtained. Clearly, more representative data need to be collected in order to determine accurate prevalence rates.
