The Essential Guide to Children’s Sleep: A Tired Caregiver’s Workbook for Every Age and Stage

Sleep is one of the most essential parts of children’s health--and getting adequate sleep is often one of the most difficult challenges parents and caregivers face.

In this book, clinicians Andrea C. Roth, Allison Shale, and Shelby F. Harris use their experiences as developmental sleep specialists and parents to create a hands-on, user-friendly workbook for parents and caregivers of children from infancy to teenage years, who struggle with sleep.

The authors begin with an emphasis on the need to understand the unique circumstances surrounding your child’s sleep issues. A child who struggles to sleep alone due to anxiety and nighttime fears needs a different approach than a child with ADHD and behavioral defiance. Each chapter in this book focuses on children of a specific age group--infants, toddlers, school-age, and teenagers--and examines the most common sleep problems at each age, from difficulties with sleep training, to sleep terrors and nightmares, to defiance and difficult bedtime routines, to the complicated impact of puberty on sleep. Then, the authors describe the best strategies for use with each type of sleep problem, with compelling vignettes showing parents and caregivers how to put these ideas into action. Worksheets help readers develop plans for their specific problem, as well as back-up plans in case the initial attempts go awry.

Dr. Andrea Roth, Psy.D is the director of Thriving Minds Behavioral Health in Livonia, Michigan, a pediatric group practice that specializes in the treatment of children with a variety of mental health diagnoses. Dr. Roth is a trained Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist and specializes in the treatment of anxiety-based disorders, including Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Selective Mutism. Dr. Roth also runs the student training program for behavioral sleep treatment at Thriving Minds. Prior to her clinical career, she worked in sleep research at the University of Wisconsin and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Currently, Dr. Roth serves as a research consultant at Henry Ford Hospital and has many published articles within the sleep field.

Dr. Allison Shale Deutsch, Psy.D is the Owner and Director of Shale Psychology, LLC, an outpatient mental health practice in Northern NJ, focused on treating children and adolescents with a range of emotional and behavioral difficulties. Dr. Shale is trained as a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist (CBT) and specializes in working with children with ADHD and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Additionally, Dr. Shale is certified in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and does a tremendous amount of parent training and behavior management work. Outside of her clinical work, Dr. Shale is a supervisor in the Psy.D. Program at Rutgers University working with advanced graduate students who are in the process of earning their PCIT certification.

Dr. Shelby Harris, Psy.D, DBSM is a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist. She is board certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Her self-help book, The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia: Get a Good Night’s Sleep Without Relying on Medication was published in 2019 (W.W. Norton Books). Dr. Harris is a Clinical Associate Professor in both Neurology and Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she teaches evidence-based sleep treatments. Dr. Harris is frequently quoted in the media, including the New Yorker, Washington Post, Well+Good, and The New York Times. She can also be found on Instagram at @SleepDocShelby where she provides evidence-based information about sleep wellness and sleep disorders.