I am pretty fortunate in that all my kids have been reasonably good sleepers (taking after their mother, who has been known to sleep through fire engines and the shrieks of a terrified Girl Scout leader, among other things). Still, I have a full appreciation of the value of a solid night’s sleep for both parent and child. There’s nothing worse than lying in bed, trying to sleep, only to be woken – again – by a child’s screaming. You as a parent can barely function, and broken (or not enough) sleep is terrible for the child’s mood and behavior too.

We went through our own personal sleep hell for the first year of our twins’ life, when one of us parents had to be awake basically around the clock due to their medical needs. That was unavoidable, and we survived by sleeping in shifts (me from 8 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. and Brett from 1:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. ). Disrupted sleep is inevitable for the first two to four months with a new baby, too. Thereafter, though, there are some things you can do to help your child be a good sleeper.

Make sleep a top priority. There are so many temptations to skip the nap, keep the kids up late to read an extra story, etc. Though I am a slow learner, repeated demonstrations of the folly of skipped sleep have finally registered. Poor sleep leads to more tantrums, more defiant behavior, more agitation, more of All That Is Bad. Put sleeping your kid right up there with feeding your kid as something that is not optional.

Establish how much sleep your child needs. There’s actually pretty objective research about children’s sleep needs (“Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth has good information on this). If you know the average 3-year-old needs 12.5 hours of sleep and yours is only getting 10, it renews your determination to help him get more.

Create a good sleep environment. It’s best for anyone’s sleep if their bedroom is for sleeping, and nothing else. Remove toys from the bedroom and establish another play area to prevent late night and early morning playing. White noise from a fan or a nature CD can be helpful if your child wakens easily. See if a darker or lighter room works better for your child.

Develop a bedtime routine. For us, it has worked well to have a seamless routine from dinner and dessert directly to putting on pajamas, brushing teeth, reading stories and going to bed. (Older kids get to hang around in their PJs for a while). A ritualized goodbye (special hug, kiss, etc.) closes off the routine.

Be the meanest mom on the block. Find out the earliest bedtime you can for your child’s age, then put your kids down 15 minutes earlier.

All that is sort of the basics. But what do you do with a child who screams and cries at three in the morning, who wakes up at 4:30 a.m. , who won’t go to sleep until 11 p.m. , who won’t nap even though he needs it? This is where you repeat to yourself the vital importance of sleep, try to figure out what’s causing the problem, and try a bunch of different things.

For the reluctant napper, try a walk in the stroller or a drive in the car at naptime to lull the kid to sleep. Still no nap? Try an obscenely early bedtime (Jack slept straight through from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. when he was 3 and 4 – it meant early dinner but it was worth it).

Early riser or night owl? Try having a “no leaving your room” rule so at least the rest of the family can sleep, and monkey with bedtimes (even a 15 minute difference can help).

Kid wakes up in middle of the night? Here (assuming your child is four months old or older) you may need to consider what the kindly call “sleep training” and the truly exhausted call “letting them cry it out.” You may be reinforcing the waking behavior without realizing it, or your child may not know how to fall asleep without you. Ultimately it may be kinder to let your child be sad for a few nights than to chronically deprive her of sleep.

It’s also good to rule out any medical conditions (like ear pain or breathing difficulties) or behavioral conditions (like ADHD, anxiety, depression or autism spectrum disorders) if you think these may be a cause of sleeplessness.

To this day, nothing makes me more tired than a child crying in the dark. With time, luck and persistence, though, most kids can learn to sleep well, and you can return to normal sleep too.

Sweet dreams.

Deb Sweeney is an Eden Prairie parent of five children ages 4 to 11. You can submit a topic or question to Deb at realparent100@yahoo.com. Sweeney’s column appears the third week of the month.