By Neil Sherman HealthSCOUT Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthSCOUT) -- If you're having nightmares about putting your kid to sleep, ignore the child's tantrum if you want pleasant dreams, British researchers say.

A review of nine studies shows that while giving children a sleeping pill may provide some immediate relief, changing your behavior -- and thus your child's -- may be the best solution to the problem.

"There is a surprising lack of good quality studies looking at effective treatments for getting kids to sleep," says Luci Wiggs, a psychologist with the University of Oxford's department of psychiatry at the Park Hospital for Children in Oxford, England. "Everybody thinks sleep problems are just a part of growing up -- that problems with going to sleep or waking up in the middle of the night are just a phase young children have to go through."

In fact getting kids to go to sleep -- or stopping them from waking up in the middle of the night -- is a family's most common behavioral problem, Wiggs says.

Twenty percent of kids ages 1 to 3 years throw a tantrum at bedtime or wake up spontaneously in the middle of the night. The problem can persist: Sleep problems are an issue for 10 percent of kids between 3 and 5 years old as well. Studies have linked sleep issues to poor maternal health as well as marital problems.

"You can certainly say it causes a lot of distress and upset," Wiggs says. "If your child is not getting enough sleep it can affect learning and is a cause of many daytime behavioral problems."

Wiggs thinks problems with bedtime have not been studied enough. "There are over 80 different sleep disorders possible here. What we really need is more research into effective treatments for kids having trouble going to sleep," she says.

Intervention better than sedatives

To begin the effort, Wiggs and her colleagues looked at nine studies to see whether giving a youngster a sedative or using psychological techniques was more effective in teaching appropriate sleeping habits.

They found that using a sedative -- the most frequently used treatment for childhood sleep problems -- was an immediate and effective solution. But a lot of parents are uncomfortable giving drugs to their children, Wiggs says.

Behavioral intervention was as effective as drugs in the short-term, and had much more long-lasting behavioral and relationship benefits, the researchers found. Their findings appear in the Jan. 22 issue of the British Medical Journal.

And what was the best way to react to a child having trouble with sleep?

The studies explored whether creating a 20-minute, winding-down routine before bedtime, or using varying kinds of what Wiggs calls "extinction" -- that is, letting a child cry -- were effective. The Oxford team also looked at whether using "scheduled wakes," where parents wake their child before they usually wake spontaneously and then resettle them back to sleep, helped solve sleeping problems.

Dr. Marc Weissbluth, author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, says that scheduled waking does not work. "The most important thing about getting a child to sleep is timing," he says. "It's important that kids under 3 have regular naps and that you get them to bed reasonably early. That way you won't have any battles. The key is to avoid the overtired state."

Also, "try and give your child less attention at night," urges Weissbluth, who is associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University School of Medicine. "When you give them less attention they are able to sleep more. Look for your child to be slightly tired and slightly drowsy when you put them to bed."

"It's not clear what kind of behavioral treatment is the most effective," Wiggs says. "All that we can really tentatively conclude is that any of the behavioral treatments are more effective than giving the child a sedative."