Sleep in the first year of life is both biologically complex and emotionally charged for families, making Infant Sleep Disorders and Medicine a critical area of pediatric practice. Clinicians are routinely asked to distinguish between normal developmental sleep patterns and clinically significant problems involving frequent night waking, difficulties settling, short sleep duration, or disturbed breathing. This session examines how to combine developmental knowledge, medical assessment, and family counselling to address infant sleep in a safe, realistic, and culturally sensitive way.

Parents increasingly search for an Pediatrics Conference or specialist advice when online information is confusing or contradictory. In this session, participants will explore how to structure consultations that cover sleep history, feeding patterns, routines, environmental factors, parental expectations, and caregiver mental health. We will review common clinical entities—including behavioural insomnia of infancy, circadian rhythm disturbance, restless sleep, parasomnias, and red flags for sleep-disordered breathing or seizures—and discuss when reassurance and guidance are sufficient, and when further investigation is needed.

A core focus is practical pediatric sleep medicine approaches that fit into everyday clinical workflows. Case discussions will highlight strategies for establishing healthy sleep associations, bedtime routines, and day–night consolidation, while respecting cultural norms around co-sleeping, feeding to sleep, and caregiving roles. Participants will also consider the impact of reflux, atopy, prematurity, chronic illness, pain, and medications on infant sleep quality, and how to manage these contributory factors. The importance of aligning advice across pediatricians, nurses, health visitors, and community workers is emphasised to avoid conflicting messages to families.

The session further explores the wider family context: sleep deprivation, parental anxiety or low mood, and relationship strain. Attendees will learn communication strategies that validate caregiver exhaustion, avoid blame, and offer stepwise options rather than rigid “one right way.” We will consider when to refer to specialised sleep services, respiratory teams, neurology, or mental health support, and how to safety-net families while waiting for review. By the end, participants will have practical, evidence-informed tools to improve infant sleep care that is developmentally appropriate, medically safe, and genuinely supportive for caregivers.