Caregivers may report their child won’t stay in bed when bedtime is offered or won’t stay in bed all night long. It’s tempting to fix the reported problem as if it’s the actual problem. However what we know about these sleep challenges is that they are only a symptom of other more significant core problems.

Before we implement a sleep protocol that simply walks the child back to bed every time they come out, we must first assess the entire sleep system and all of the variables that could possibly be controlling the reinforcing value of sleep at bedtime. Very often, by addressing these variables first, we can avoid what’s commonly known as “sleep training” altogether.

In addition, if sleep training is the goal (it isn’t always the case), then we owe it to the learner and their family to make sure they have the skills necessary to tolerate being alone in their sleep space, for example, before implementing any type of program that aims to achieve independent sleep at bedtime.