Third of parents lie about their kids' sleeping habits

The pressure to be a perfect parent is so great that around a third of parents admit lying about their youngster's sleeping habits, a new survey has claimed.

A UK-based parenting website questioned almost 11,000 parents and found that parents lied about the time their child goes to bed or wakes up, when their youngster first slept through the night and how well their son or daughter sleeps, the Daily Mail reported.

A whopping 61.7 per cent parents have lied about how well they are coping with sleep deprivation, the survey said.

Less than half of parents- 45.8 per cent- said that their child never wakes in the night with around one in ten, 11.1 per cent, getting up three or more times.

A third of parents, 36 per cent, said their baby did not sleep through the night by the time they were a year old with only one in four - 25.7 per cent - saying their baby slept through by the time they were three months old.

The poll found that the most popular way for families to get children to sleep was to use set routines.

One in five parents have resorted to driving a youngster around in a car to get them to nod off, the survey said.

Some parents were seeking help with sleeping problems. One in five - 21.2 per cent - have gone to a health visitor, a similar proportion - 20.2 per cent - have asked advice from family and friends and others have gone to parenting websites, read books or even asked child psychologists and sleep specialists for help.

"Sleep is key to health - for both parents and children. Without adequate sleep, parents can feel they are struggling to cope, be at risk of depression or see their relationship suffer," health visitor of the website, Maggie Fisher was quoted by the paper as saying.