Promoting parental role in the child's sleep behaviors up to five years old

Introduction: The sleep plays an important role in the first years of life to promote the growth and development of children. The insufficiency and low quality of sleep in children has been a public health problem. A total of 25 to 50% of children up to five years old present difficulties related sleep. Objectives: To know the nursing interventions developed by the nurses aimed at the adequate exercise of parental role in dealing with children’s behavior at bedtime. Methods: Integrative Literature Review, to answer the question “How nurses help the parents of children up to five years old to deal with their children’s behavior at bedtime?” Bibliographic search in databases social science, nursing and health professions, neuroscience, medicine and dentistry decision science, B-on, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Medline (with full-text), CINAHL Plus (with fulltext), MedicLatina and ERIC, selecting studies from 2012 to May/2017 in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish using the descriptors “parents”, “nurse”, “children’s sleep”, “Sleep habits”, “sleep”, “children” e “recommendation” and their correspondents in Portuguese. They included eight articles. Results: Parents with greater knowledge about children’s hygiene and sleep patterns adopt better strategies, more appropriate to their children and that aim to promote sleep-favoring behaviors. There are some differences about bed sharing and naps in the context of Nurseries. The nurses, in general, have little education about the child’s sleep, which makes their action difficult. Conclusion: Although most of parents are sensitive to developing strategies appropriate to their child’s sleep needs, the nurses should be awake to the importance of parent empowerment about children’s sleep. There must be a greater investment in the teaching and promotion of good practices before sleep.