Sleep Europe 2026 | Pediatric sleep disorders: addressing unmet needs in diagnosis and management

So the ESRS is really trying to raise up the field of pediatric sleep medicine because we feel that this is something that really deserves more emphasis. So me, also being like a pediatric sleep specialist, would really like to be involved in this because we are clearly missing guidelines and we are clearly missing the ways to approach children. We know that children are not just small adults, and that in the pediatric population, there is a great prevalence of sleep disorders, and many of the disorders that we are discussing now, that we have exciting new possibilities, are actually beginning in the pediatric era. So it’s nice to evaluate and diagnose them as soon as possible in order to offer them now these new exciting treatment possibilities that are coming.

So probably the big obstacles at the moment are, of course, that many of the devices that we use are not adapted for analyzing children. We have a real lack of possibilities to record children in the sleep labs. So that is why there is an exciting development about all these new ambulatory devices that can be used and enter the pediatric homes in order to follow them. And the other problem is that actually, we don’t have really European guidelines on how to approach and how to evaluate and treat pediatric sleep disorders. So that is why the ESRS is really helping a lot in making a network of pediatric specialists in Europe and wider, and that we would finally have the network to collaborate and work on this important issue. So we clearly need guidelines for the evaluation of pediatric sleep patients.

So I believe that there is still, you know, this thinking among the primary pediatricians and other people working in the field that the only sleep disorder is insomnia. And now, with some treatments, they really go to this, especially in children with neurodevelopmental problems, that we know very frequently have sleep disorders. But there is a very important point that we try to educate, and that there are also other sleep disorders, like, for example, sleep-breathing disorders or sleep movement disorders, that are also very frequent, especially in those populations. So to think about those that are treated differently and that need a different approach, so I think that this is crucial, because still, there is, you know, like a sleep disorder, it’s not the same as insomnia, and insomnia, then you prescribe something, of course, and to emphasize that even in those special populations, children, still, this behavioral cognitive therapy is very, very important. So maybe sometimes, of course, on many occasions, this will not be enough, but just to go along with the pharmacological treatment, also to think about, first, the cognitive behavioral treatment, even in this very challenging population.

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