Bleary eyes and exhaustion are features of life for all parents at one time or another after hours spent through the night tending children who just cannot sleep.

But the problem if it becomes persistent can have a devastating impact on work, relationships and family life.

For many parents in the Idle area help has come in a special sleep clinic specially designed to give tips to people struggling to cope.

Mum Andrea Mitchell has twice seen health visitor Angela Lumb at Idle Medical Centre after she and husband Andrew decided to get help with daughter Laura, now two.

Aged 18 months, she was failing to sleep through the night, waking up every hour on the hour while a few months later she began waking up regularly at 4.30am.

But thanks to simple adjustments to sleeping arrangements she is getting more sleep - and so are her parents.

Andrea said: "Angela advised me to be a lot harder, to leave her in the cot and let her cry if need be. It was difficult at first but within two or three days everything was okay."

She returned again for more advice because Laura was waking early and was advised to give her something to drink before getting her back to bed which again proved successful.

Angela Lumb said the clinic, open only to people registered at the practice, had had some very good results and it was hoped to extend it to other practices in the area in coming months.

She preferred to speak to both parents if possible to discuss the problem and got them to compile a sleep diary to establish a pattern of behaviour.

It was important to find the conditions which encouraged children to go to sleep and use props like drinks if necessary.

In older children it was possible to create some kind of pattern leading from the bath, to a bed-time story to going to bed and going to sleep.

"Advice depends on the age of the child but it may involve some kind of behaviour modification," she said.

"It also depends on family circumstances.

A single parent with three children, two sharing rooms, is in a very different situation to a working couple with one child.''

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