Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. I raise the matter of the need for the Minister for Health to explore the possibility of the HSE rolling out a nationwide sleep training programme to provide expertise to parents facing the challenges of getting their babies and young children to sleep. Some may think that this matter is not as pressing as some of the other problems currently besetting the health service. For many parents with young babies, however, this is a very important topic.

For those unfamiliar with the subject, sleep training is the process of helping a baby learn to fall and then stay asleep through the night. Some babies do this quickly and easily but others have trouble settling down to sleep or getting back to sleep after waking and may need help along the way. I must admit that, up until quite recently, I had never heard of sleep training. My partner and I became very familiar with the concept, however, when we desperately needed advice on how to deal with the challenge of our baby daughter's inability to sleep well. It struck me that there are many other new parents across the country facing the issue of sleep deprivation. There is no doubt but that the problem of a baby who does not sleep can have an impact on the whole household. If a child is not sleeping properly then the parents will not be sleeping properly either. Both the child and the parents will then be out of sorts for the rest of the day.This can be an absolute nightmare for parents who have gone through or are going through it and anyone who has suffered sleep deprivation on an ongoing basis will appreciate it is like a form of torture. It becomes even worse if the mother wants to return to work and there is no proper sleep routine in place. When my baby, Francesca, arrived there was no sleep in our house for the first ten months. It was difficult for my partner and we were at our wits' end trying to figure out how we could get a baby to sleep for at least a few hours during the night rather than 45 minutes at a time. The first ten months were very stressful and as my partner prepared to go back to work the stress became greater because our little baby had no sleep routine.

Through parents' forums we discovered a sleep trainer who ultimately used her experience to give us back our lives. The sleep trainer stayed in our house for a weekend to observe our baby's sleeping patterns and then provided a solution to the problem. This, along with follow-up calls from the sleep trainer, meant that within a very short period our baby was sleeping like a baby. It was incredible; my partner and I got our lives back and the baby, Francesca, was sleeping right through the night.

When I first heard of sleep trainers, I thought it was something that one would have in California and that we must get it and and at one stage I laughed at the fact that we had a sleep trainer coming to our house. It was probably the best money we ever spent and, more important, our baby is sleeping at night. Although worth every penny, this private service did not come cheap. However, the HSE should consider rolling it out nationwide, in particular for first-time parents who are struggling with their baby's sleep patterns. There may be an opportunity for a call centre and much has been done in the area through on-screen media. Some counties may have the service in place to some extent with the support of the HSE but I would like it to be extended or explored further. There are huge pressures on the health system but I never thought I would have been in such a situation where a simple answer provided an effective solution to a huge problem. I thank the Minister for his interest.