Welcome to Sensible Sleep

Sensible Sleep incorporates The Australian Centre for Education in Sleep, The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic, Snooze for Kids and The GeMSS Practice Certificate. It brings together information on sleep for parents, children, young people, health care professionals, teachers and community groups. We are a team of experienced psychologists and we assist with sleep as well as other related issues such as parenting, depression and anxiety. We are passionate about providing education and information about the importance of sleep and what happens when we don’t get enough.

Sensible Sleep offers research-based information and gentle solutions and strategies to improve sleep health, now and for the future.

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Here at Sensible Sleep, we develop, produce and deliver high quality sleep educational products and services for educators, health professionals as well as parents, students and communities.

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Paediatric Sleep and
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Paediatric Sleep & Psychology Clinic

ABOUT THE PAEDIATRIC SLEEP & PSYCHOLOGY CLINIC

The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic has been established out of an obvious need for specialist paediatric sleep services for diagnosing and treating families with children and adolescents who are experiencing sleep problems. There is a large percentage of children in Australia who are in need of assistance with their sleep problems. Some sleep problems only last for a while and may be related to something in the child’s life [going to school, divorce in the family, teething etc], but others stay around for months and sometime years. Chronic sleep problems can have long term effects on children’s physical and psychological health.

Sleep problems in children (and adults!) can be largely divided into medical sleep problems (such as sleep apnea, sleep related epilepsy) or behavioural/psychological (such as difficulties getting to sleep or staying asleep, reluctance to go to bed or sleep related anxiety). These latter problems are the type of problem treated at the Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic.

Sleep deprivation particularly in the first months and years of having a new child in the house can be really hard. Worry and stress are common.

At Sensible Sleep, which incorporates the Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic, our sleep psychologists offer a range of sleep interventions that are responsive and do not include ignoring your child.

But because we are psychologists, any other issues and problems that might arise that impacts wellbeing including parenting, or any issues with infants, young children or adolescents, we can help.

We are trained clinical psychologists. We know the science of sleep as well as all aspects of child development.

You may believe that your child has a sleep problem. See below some basic questions that some parents and children have about how we can treat a sleep problem at the clinic by a psychologist.

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A sleep psychologist specialises in diagnosing and treating children’s sleep problems that are behaviourally/psychologically based. What is a behavioural sleep problem? A sleep problem may be the result of a pattern of behaviours that may be getting in the way of good sleep habits. A sleep psychologist can find ways to change these sleep related behaviours (such as sleep routines, how the parents and child interact, how the child behaves when they are sacred or lonely at night) and usually when the sleep habits are changed the child’s sleep patterns will improve. A sleep psychologist can also investigate whether anything else in the child’s life is worrying them and interfering with their sleep such as bullying at school, moving house or a divorce in the family. Sleep can be one of the first things to be affected when a child has a change in their lives or they are worried about something. If sleep problems are found to medically based, children will be referred to medical sleep specialists.

Potentially every behaviourally based sleep problem can be fixed in both typically developing and non-typically developing children. This is usually the case even if you ‘have tried everything!!’ Sleep programs that retrain children (and their parents) into better sleep habits, need to change habits that may have been around for a long time and usually require some effort to fix. However, if you can stick to the sleep program, there is no reason why it will not be successful. The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic will support you and your child to stick to the program until sleep habits have improved. In normal childhood development, sleep is one thing that can be controlled.

Treatment programs for behaviourally based sleep problems are usually based on the psychological theory of reinforcement. That is, we reward children for behaviour that we want them to do, but we do not reward them for behaviour we do not want them to do. If poor behaviour (such as getting out of bed, tantrums at bedtime etc.) is rewarded by attention, then the behaviour will in most cases continue. We want children to go to sleep calmly and to ‘self – soothe’ themselves back to sleep during the night when they wake. We want to do this with the least amount of stress for the child and the family.

  • In older children, this can be done by finding small and achievable goals to change bedtime behaviour. Rewarding a child with love and encouragement for achieving goals to improve their sleep will usually result in the child continuing to show good behaviour. Children respond to rewards and love and are pleased to be ‘the boss of their sleep’. A sleep program will help parents and children to find the best way to motivate the child and parents to improve poor behaviour by positive reinforcement.
  • In younger children, gentle sleep programs can achieve the same result even though we cannot ‘explain’ things to a young baby.

A plan will be put in place and a sleep program will be given to the child and family. A sleep psychologist can also help teach a child techniques to overcome nighttime fears, nightmares, night terrors, stress, bed wetting and separation anxiety.

The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic is based on the Sensible Sleep Solution™, a method developed in the clinic from research undertaken by Dr Sarah Blunden and refined by Dr Blunden and Angie Willcocks. The Sensible Sleep Solution™teaches a child to self soothe without the need for controlled crying or ignoring your  child’s discomfort .

After you have made contact with the clinic you will be sent some sleep, behaviour and family history questionnaires so that we can get a good idea of sleep problems and know a little bit about your child. This information will help us to establish how we can best fix the sleep problems. These questionnaires are usually sent back to the clinic before the first appointment.

During the appointment we will go through that information and much more, to get a complete sleep history from your child to try and identify the sleep problem.

The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic does not develop sleep programs for infants under 6 months, but many parents come to the clinic for some sound advice, support and “evidence based” information from birth. The Paediatric Sleep Clinic therefore treats children up to 18 years. At each developmental stage, there are common sleep problems. As an infant, difficulty settling to sleep without parental assistance creates the most difficulty for families. In toddlers and pre-schoolers, bedtime reluctance, separation anxiety and constant ‘exits’ from the bedroom are the most widespread. In school aged children bedtime fears, nightmares and bedwetting are common and in adolescents, the most common problems are related to sleepiness and difficulty falling asleep. All age groups have specific problems and can be helped to resolve their sleep difficulties. When is the best time to start a sleep program? Sleep problems may develop quickly due to an event or gradually over time. When they begin to interfere with your child’s daytime behaviour, if you, the parents believe that your child is not getting enough sleep and if your family is being affected by lack of sleep, then it is time to investigate how to change things. Any time is a good time to treat a sleep problem!

Depending on what the problem is and how long it has been around will make a big difference to the length of time it takes to treat it. Every child and their family is different so solutions for one family may not work for another family. Some programs are finished after 4 weeks and some take longer. Once good sleep habits have been established and the child and parents know how to keep sleep habits healthy, that program can finish. If the sleep program is stuck to, there is no reason why sleep patterns cannot improve. The more the program is stuck to, the faster the improvement.

The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic uses a responsive, non- ignoring method to change and improve sleep patterns in children. There is no need to ignore an infant or child in order to achieve better sleep. Our responsive sleep methods have been used for many years, have been published in academic journals and parenting books and are the basis for the GeMMS Practice Certificate (Gentle Methods of Self Settling, developed to train health professionals around the world in this responsive method.

The Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic is led by Professor Sarah Blunden (BAPsych Hons, MSocSc, PhD) who is a clinical psychologist with expertise In sleep and member of the Australian Psychological Society, Australasian Sleep Association, International Pediatric Sleep Association, and the Australian Council of Children and the Media. Dr Blunden has been researching and treating children’s sleep disorders for over 15 years firstly through her Paediatric Sleep and Psychology Clinic in South Australia and Northern Territory, including “E-therapy” around Australia and with an overseas stint at the University of Michigan Medical Center Pediatric Sleep Clinic.

Currently our clinic costs are $205.00  for a one hour session. Costs can be reduced through:

  • Medicare (with appropriate documentation from a General Practitioner or Paediatrician).
  • Any Private Health Insurance psychology extras cover.

With the relevant Doctor’s referral Medicare will reimburse each session $137.05, which means the gap is approximately $70.00.

Group clinics are available at reduced costs, but there is no reimbursement available for group clinics.

The psychologists at our clinic also see toddlers, children and young people who have NDIS funding for Early Intervention Services or for Disability and are either self funded or have a Plan Manager.  Currently costs for psychological services from NDIS are $234.83.

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Group Sessions

ABOUT THE PAEDIATRIC SLEEP AND PSYCHOLOGY CLINIC GROUP SESSIONS

Sensible Sleep offers group sleep education sessions throughout the year, catering to parents and caregivers of children aged 0-18 years.

These sessions, run by our highly experienced sleep psychologists, Professor Sarah Blunden and Mary King, cover important information about children and sleep followed by ‘question time’ which allows individuals to obtain advice about their own situation.

Based in Adelaide, South Australia, we run sessions across a number of locations in Adelaide and also in regional areas. In addition to in-person sessions, we run regular online Telehealth presentations for anyone based outside of Adelaide, or for those preferring online delivery. If you would like to run a Sleep Solutions Session in your community please contact us via email to discuss.

If you would like to enquire about a Sleep Solutions Group session, or speak with one of our Sleep Specialists for individualised support and assistance please click the link below!

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Educate Yourself

35 – 40% of children and adolescents experience some form of sleep problem during their development. These problems can differ depending on a child’s age.

Sleep problems can be either:

Intrinsic: Come from the inside (including nightmares, night terrors, bed wetting and snoring)

Extrinsic: Come from the outside (such as bedtime reluctance, anxiety related insomnia, inability to fall asleep alone or environmental and social problems that get in the way of sleep)

Learn more about sleep problems through the links below, or give us a call if you need help today!

Courses and Programs
Books + Resources