Those who have a baby or children under the age of two at home know the drama at bedtime well. To make the little ones fall asleep, each parent adopts a different strategy. For some, total silence works best. Others prefer to follow rituals to relax their child, such as bathing, offering soothing foods or reading a book. Even so, sometimes all of these strategies fail, crying begins and the only solution seems to be to give in to the child’s demands and bring it to the middle of the parents’ bed.
The problem is that insufficient, irregular, non-routine, or low-quality sleep can impair child development. Research shows that it is essential for ensuring growth, and good motor and cognitive performance in the first 1,000 days.
To advise parents on this difficult task every night, and assess the impacts of these recommendations, the physician and researcher Iná da Silva dos Santos, from the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL) and a specialist in evaluating maternal and child health programs and services, proposed an innovative project in Brazil. “This is still a very underexplored topic and rarely present in consultations with pediatricians, but it is necessary to provide instruction to parents as soon as possible,” says Iná. “The topic is so new that this project led to the creation of a line of research in postgraduate studies on sleep.”
