Sleep is a blindspot in pediatric medicine.
let’s change that.
Why Sleep Matters
Sleep is essential for a child’s health, influencing every aspect of their development—from physical growth to emotional well-being. Yet, it remains an overlooked aspect of pediatric care, leaving critical gaps that impact children’s lives.
Unaddressed sleep challenges can lead to behavioral difficulties, chronic conditions, and reduced quality of life. By placing sleep health at the center of pediatric care, we can intervene earlier, support recovery, and set children on a healthier path.
At ChildRight2Sleep (CR2S), we’re working to elevate the role of sleep in pediatrics and adolescent medicine. Our mission is to ensure sleep is recognized as a vital component of every child’s health.
Making Illness Prevention a Priority
Sleep is more than rest—it’s a powerful tool for preventing illness and promoting recovery. By integrating sleep health into child and adolescent care, we can improve outcomes across three critical levels:
Primary Prevention: Establishing healthy sleep habits to protect against future health challenges.
Secondary Prevention: Identifying and addressing sleep disorders early, such as insomnia or sleep apnea, to prevent complications such as ADHD-like behaviours, which are a typical symptom of sleep deprivation.
Tertiary Prevention: Enhancing quality of life for children with chronic conditions through improved sleep.
At CR2S, we are dedicated to embedding sleep into pediatric and adolescent healthcare to build healthier futures for children, families, and communities.
The Lesson we Learned from Fidgety Phillip
Heinrich Hoffmann’s Fidgety Phillip (1845) poses a timeless question: why does Phillip fall with his chair? Could it be ADHD, Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), sleep-disordered breathing, or even dynamics within his family?
This story highlights the complexity of pediatric health and the importance of considering all possibilities—including sleep. Too often, what we notice is shaped by our training and biases, leaving critical factors unexamined.
At CR2S, Phillip’s story reminds us to rethink how we approach care. Sleep health isn’t just a consideration—it’s a core element in diagnosing and managing conditions that affect children’s development and well-being.
Sleep is a fundamental right of every child and a cornerstone of health and development. At CR2S, we are addressing a critical gap in pediatric and adolescent health by elevating sleep health to a central focus in clinical practice.
Our initiative unites experts in pediatric and adolescent sleep medicine and psychology with families, practitioners, industry leaders, and policymakers to inspire meaningful change. By developing evidence-based benchmarks and practical frameworks, we aim to transform how sleep disorders are recognized, understood, and managed.
Join us at our Vancouver conference (Feb 21) or Vienna conference (May 4–6) —in person or via our virtual livestream —to explore actionable strategies for integrating sleep health into pediatric and adolescent care. Through initiatives like the bursaries of the participating sleep societies, we are fostering mentorship and cultivating the next generation of leaders in sleep medicine.
Together, we can shift sleep health from being a blind spot to a protected right, creating lasting change for children and families.