Sleep

What helps

• Devices out of the bedroom at night. The single biggest sleep intervention any family can make. The dark-bedroom-bright-screen combination is the most disruptive of all. Charge devices in the kitchen overnight.
• A wind-down routine starting 30 to 45 minutes before bed. Bath, teeth, pyjamas, reading, lights low. The brain reads the sequence as “sleep is coming” and starts releasing melatonin. Predictability is the active ingredient.

Some tips to try

Three short pieces from the library, and the part of each you can act on tonight.

• The Body Too Awake for Bedtime. The parent’s pace matters more than the routine.
  • Put your phone in the drawer in the hall before going in.
  • Sit on the edge of the bed, not the foot of it.
  • Wear out the body before lights down, not after.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-body-that-will-not-settle
• When You Are the One Not Sleeping. Parental insomnia is the body telling you something the day has not.
  • Three nights becomes three weeks more often than parents expect.
  • Book the GP appointment without minimising what is happening.
  • Read Mind’s stress and sleep resources alongside.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-body-that-has-stopped-sleeping

Something to do together

A “three good things” pre-bed journal. Spoken or written. Each evening, name three small good moments from the day. The mind settles on what was good, not what was hard.

• Find a small notebook your child can keep by their bed, or simply have the conversation aloud.
• After lights-off, ask: “What were three good moments from today?” Help them be specific, “the bit at lunch when Anya was funny” rather than “lunch was good.”
• Write them down (or have your child write them) in the notebook. Three lines, no more.
• Read back the previous night’s three before adding tonight’s. The cumulative effect is part of the work.

If you want to read further

• The Hour Before Bed. A chapter for parents whose evenings have stopped working. theparentbook.com/reader/the-hour-before-bed
• Screen Time. A chapter for parents who have lost the argument about hours, and suspect the argument was never quite the right one. theparentbook.com/reader/screen-time

Worth your time

• A book for you: Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, Richard Ferber. The pragmatic, much-debated classic uk.bookshop.org/p/books/solve-your-child-s-sleep-problems-richard-ferber/36b50f9641b43084
• A book to read together: A Book of Sleep, Il Sung Na. A gentle bedtime read for the youngest · ages 2–5 uk.bookshop.org/search?keywords=a+book+of+sleep+il+sung+na
• Something to listen to: Children’s sleep and the modern world, The Therapy Edit, 40 min. open.spotify.com/search/children%20sleep%20podcast

Where else to go

For almost everything, the NHS is the right first move, and it costs nothing.

• Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp
• Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the fastest route to a change that helps. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.

• NHS Every Mind Matters. The NHS self-help hub. Useful when you want to gesture at NHS-backed self-help in a parent-friendly format. Chapters about sleep, low mood, or general wellbeing where a short course or self-help quiz is a sensible next step. Reassures parents who want an NHS source specifically. www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters
• NCT (National Childbirth Trust). The UK’s leading early-years charity. The right line for families in the pregnancy and under-fives years, including the toddler tantrums, toilet training, language development, and the early aggression that the very-young-child tips hold. Quick tips and chapters across the 2-5 years cluster. NCT’s parent-facing resources are calm, evidence-anchored, and the cleanest UK source we know for the developmental sequence of the early years. The Infant Feeding Line holds the breastfeeding and early-feeding territory specifically. Charged at your standard call rate, not free. NCT Infant Feeding Line and Parent Support 0300 330 0700 · Daily 8am-midnight (Infant Feeding Line) www.nct.org.uk
• MindEd for Families. NHS-backed e-learning hub written by specialists and parents together. The right pointer for parents who want to go deeper than a charity explainer. When the chapter calls for a substantial primer rather than a short article. Particularly useful for parents who are research-minded and want structured material they can work through. www.minded.org.uk

The full list for sleep, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/sleep/services