Neil Newman, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in Manhattan, treats parents and children over 5 years old, many of whom are struggling with sleep battles. “If I had to generalize,” he said, “I’d say it usually has something to do with separation or boundaries. It might be a problem of anxiety, but mostly the origin of the problem is the difficulty parents have in setting appropriate limits. It’s commonly believed in the mental health field that it’s important the children learn to sleep on their own. Not doing it often generalizes to other problems, because it’s about a fairly important way that parents say no to their child.”

Labels: children, kids, parents, sleep