Sleeping habits in a group of children 6 to 24 months of age

Introduction: the infantile insomnia is the most frequent sleeping alteration. Targets: learn about the children sleeping habits (children from 6 to 24 months). Consider the parents? satisfaction about these habits. Determine the possible factors associated to incorrect sleeping habits. Material and methods: we studied 173 children, that went to two health centres from the 1st of December 2003 to the 31st of March 2004. A survey of 36 questions was designed, and a parent answered those 36 questions. Results: 57.8% of the children sleep in the parents? room, 8.6% sleep in the parents? bed. 56% sleep alone, while 25.7% sleep in the parents? arms or in a different place. 91.3% of the parents use some resource to get their children to sleep, the most frequent one is the dummy (49.1%). 21.3% of the children don?t wake up during the night, while 11.5% wake up 3 times or more a week and 3 times or more every night. 31% of the parents let the children go to sleep again on their own. We find an important relation between the parents? satisfaction, and the capacity of the children to go to sleep on their own (p = 0.001), and the capacity of the children to go to sleep in less than 15 minutes (p = 0.016), and with the habits of not waking up or waking up twice during the night (p = 0.000). Conclusions: 54.4% of the sleeping problems are caused by incorrect habits. The majority of the parents make the children go to sleep by an incorrect way.