It's 2am. You've done the bottle, the dummy, the third "I need water," the "one more song." You're not just tired anymore, you're starting to wonder if something's wrong with you, or them, or both.
It's neither. Sleep struggles between birth and age eight are extremely common, and they're rarely about anything you're doing wrong. But they're worth taking seriously, not just because your child needs sleep to grow and learn, but because you need it too, and the two are more connected than most parenting advice admits.
We've partnered with sleep consultant Anna Baker of SleepBaker, who works with families of babies through to eight-year-olds, to put together what we think is a more honest look at this than the usual "5 tips for better sleep" list.
What's actually happening when a child sleeps
Sleep isn't downtime. During deep sleep, the body releases growth hormone, which is why children often sleep harder during growth spurts. During REM sleep, the brain processes and files away the day's experiences, which is a big part of how young children regulate emotion and consolidate memory. Australian health authorities are clear that sleep affects a child's physical growth, immune function, mood, memory and concentration, and that poor sleep is linked to both mental health issues and reduced learning.
In other words: a child who isn't sleeping well isn't just tired. Their whole system is under-resourced for the day ahead, which is often exactly why bedtime, the next night, gets harder too.
The part that doesn't get talked about enough: it goes both ways
Here's what a lot of sleep advice misses. It's not just that a child's poor sleep affects a parent's mental health, it runs the other way too. Research on toddlers has found that both children's sleep difficulties and parents' emotional distress feed into each other: a stressed, exhausted parent has less capacity to co-regulate a child at bedtime, which can make settling harder, which increases the parent's stress further. It's a loop, not a one-way street.
The encouraging part: because it's a loop, it can also work in reverse. One clinical study found that a single consultation focused on improving a baby's sleep led to measurable improvements not just in night wakings, but in mothers' stress, anxiety and depression scores. Helping a child sleep better is, in a very real sense, a mental health intervention for the whole family.
What this looks like at different ages
Babies (0-12 months): Frequent waking is developmentally normal, but that doesn't make it easier at 3am. Sleep cycles are still maturing, and a lot of what looks like a "problem" is your baby doing exactly what babies do at this stage, which is exhausting to live through regardless.
Toddlers (1-3 years): This is often where parents feel most alone with it, because the "it's just a phase" advice starts to wear thin. Bedtime stalling, resistance, and night waking at this age are frequently tied to your toddler's still-developing ability to self-regulate emotion, which is also why a calm, consistent adult at bedtime matters more than any particular technique.
Preschool and early school-age (4-8 years): Sleep problems don't disappear once kids "grow out of" the toddler stage. Bedtime anxiety, resistance to independent sleep, and the pressure of earlier school starts and screens all show up here, and it's still linked to mood and behaviour during the day.
If you're feeling guilty about it, that's worth naming too
A lot of parents carry shame about their child's sleep, the sense that "good" parents should have this figured out by now, especially once a child is past the baby stage. That guilt doesn't help anyone sleep better, and it's not evidence you're doing something wrong. Sleep is genuinely one of the hardest, most individual things to get right for a young child, and needing support with it isn't a failure.
Free workshops, if you'd like more hands-on help
We know not every family can make it to an in-person session, so we didn't want this article to be only about that. But if you can, we've partnered with SleepBaker to run free workshops, open to all families, at select Affinity centres across NSW, QLD, VIC, WA and NT, covering babies through to age eight.
Northern Territory
- Milestones Parap - 10.30am, Friday, 2 October
Western Australia
- Dates TBC
This section will be updated as more events are confirmed.
If a session isn't near you, or the timing doesn't work, everything above still applies, and Anna's team shares ongoing, free guidance via @sleepbaker.au and her blog.