Kids can't sleep? UBC researcher wants to help parents

It's likely at least some kids out trick-or-treating last night will have trouble getting to bed today, but a University of British Columbia researcher says kids' sleep troubles go beyond post-Halloween sugar highs.

UBC nursing professor Wendy Hall said about one-quarter of Canadian children have trouble sleeping, and that usually leads to sleep-deprived parents.

"You can imagine that parents can start to feel very fatigued and depressed and just not very well," she said.

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For the past five years, Hall and her team have been working on a sleep-improvement tool for parents.

She says her month-long program Better Nights, Better Days requires parents and children to complete several video exercises online.

The exercises cover elements of healthy sleep, common sleep problems, a sleep diary, and other methods to help children develop better sleeping habits.

"It's very interactive and there's a lot of components in it," she said. "So it talks about what normal sleep for kids is and what all the factors are you can [use to] promote normal sleep for kids."

The program is running as a pilot across Canada and a stipend will be offered to parents for completing it.

Parents of children aged one to 10 are eligible and can register online.

With files from Kamil Karamali