Kids can't sleep? UBC researcher wants to help parents
Month-long online program — Better Nights, Better Days — aims to help parents and kids
It's likely at least some kids out trick-or-treating last night will have trouble getting to bed today, but a University of British Columbia researcher says kids' sleep troubles go beyond post-Halloween sugar highs.
UBC nursing professor Wendy Hall said about one-quarter of Canadian children have trouble sleeping, and that usually leads to sleep-deprived parents.
"You can imagine that parents can start to feel very fatigued and depressed and just not very well," she said.
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For the past five years, Hall and her team have been working on a sleep-improvement tool for parents.
She says her month-long program — Better Nights, Better Days — requires parents and children to complete several video exercises online.
The exercises cover elements of healthy sleep, common sleep problems, a sleep diary, and other methods to help children develop better sleeping habits.
"It's very interactive and there's a lot of components in it," she said. "So it talks about what normal sleep for kids is and what all the factors are you can [use to] promote normal sleep for kids."
The program is running as a pilot across Canada and a stipend will be offered to parents for completing it.
Parents of children aged one to 10 are eligible and can register online.
With files from Kamil Karamali