How Not to Get Baby to Sleep

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According to Simard's study, children whose parents fed them when they woke up in the middle of the night at age three were more likely to have nightmares and short sleep times at age four.

Babies who grew accustomed to falling asleep with a parent in the room, being held until they fell asleep, or being taken into a parent's bed when they couldn't sleep were also more likely as older children to have trouble falling asleep and to sleep fewer hours during the night.

"Co-sleeping with the child does not seem to be a good solution for comforting a child after night awakenings," Simard says. But that doesn't mean that children should be left to wail endlessly, or that parents should never console them. "It might be appropriate to be present in the room, comforting the child for a short time," Simard says. But it's most important "to let the child develop a capacity to comfort himself on his own."

The risk for obesity was exacerbated by TV watching: 17% of children who slept fewer than 12 hours per night and watched two or more hours of television a day before age 2 were obese by age 3, compared with 9% of the study participants overall.

These findings are the latest in a growing field of study dedicated to understanding how sleep affects health, particularly in childhood. Increasingly, research suggests that long-term sleep-related problems may start as early as infancy, and that both pediatricians and parents need to do more to ensure that children develop healthy sleeping habits. "The most important message is that there's a lot we can do to prevent problems from starting — in sleep," says Taveras. "Parents and pediatricians should keep in mind that children have to develop the capacity to regulate their own sleep early in life and self-soothe themselves during the night."