Treatment of sleep disorders in children.

Sleep disorders can have a significant impact on the growth and development of children. Behavioral intervention is the first step in the management of many sleep disorders. Limit-setting is particularly challenging in younger children but must be consistent. Good sleep hygiene practices must be emphasized to adolescents as well. Indeed, good sleep hygiene is an important intervention for the entire family. There is an emerging development of pharmacologic treatments for sleep disorders. However, as with most medications used for children, there is a paucity of drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for sleep in children due to the limited number of pediatric clinical trials. As a result, most of what is prescribed has been extrapolated from adult studies and is based on clinical experience.