Sleep difficulties in children, adolescents, and young adults
Bedtime that stretches for hours, waking in the small hours, a mind that will not switch off. Dr. Wald works with families in Coral Gables on the routines and skills that steadier nights are built from.
Signs of sleep trouble in children, adolescents, and young adults
Sleep rarely travels alone. It tends to come with worry and with the focus problems that follow a short night, so this work often overlaps with anxiety care and ADHD and attention. See every area Dr. Wald treats on the services page.
Children
Bedtime stretches an hour past where it started, with endless requests for water, a light, or one more story. Some children fall asleep easily, then wake in the night needing company to settle. Fear of the dark is common. The cost lands on the whole house: tears over small things, short patience, and trouble focusing at school.
Adolescents
Sleep drifts later while school start times hold, so teens lie wide awake at midnight and cannot move in the morning. Phones stretch the evening, and a busy mind starts replaying the day the moment the lights go off. Parents usually meet the daytime half first: a short fuse, missed first periods, and slipping grades.
Young adults
By college and the first working years, sleep is the thing that gets traded away. Late shifts, papers finished at four in the morning, caffeine, and a phone in the bed make a schedule that shifts daily. The result is a tiredness that sleeping in never repairs, with worry and low mood often close by.
Why bedtime becomes a battle
Sleep runs on habit and cue, not willpower. When falling asleep has become tied to a parent's presence, a screen, or a long stretch of worrying, the body learns that association and repeats it faithfully. That is not a discipline problem or a parenting failure, which is why stricter rules alone rarely settle it.
Dr. Wald starts with everything around sleep: the wind-down, the room, the schedule, and what a young person is thinking about as the lights go out. The work is to change those conditions, not to fight the child.
Request a free 15 minute consultationWhat the first weeks of sleep support look like
Understanding before advice
Dr. Wald begins with a clear picture of the nights: the current routine, how long falling asleep really takes, and what happens overnight. Families often keep a simple sleep record for a week or two, so the pattern can be seen rather than remembered.
Change the conditions around sleep
Then the work turns practical: a wind-down that starts before the bedroom does, a schedule that holds through the weekend, a room that supports rest, and a night-waking plan every adult in the house carries out the same way.
Support the household through it
The first nights of a new plan are the hardest, so Dr. Wald coaches parents through them and adjusts as things change. When a pediatrician or psychiatrist is involved, or a physician needs to rule out a medical cause such as trouble breathing at night, she coordinates so everyone works from the same picture.
How Dr. Wald helps with bedtime and night waking
Families come to the Coral Gables office from Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne, and many continue by telehealth while a routine is being reset. Not sure where to begin? Request a free 15 minute consultation.
Behavioral strategies
Routines, cues, and a consistent plan for the night, built around one family's real schedule.
Parent training
Her parent-training work addresses sleep directly, alongside tantrums, separation, and school refusal.
Mindfulness
Simple practices for settling a busy body, useful for children and teenagers who lie awake.
CBT-informed skills
For older children and adolescents, work on the worry and the racing thoughts that keep the lights on.
Motivational interviewing
With adolescents and young adults, change that starts from their own reasons for wanting different nights.
Start with a conversation about sleep
A free 15 minute consultation is an unhurried way to describe the nights at home and hear how Dr. Wald would approach them. The office sits on South Dixie Highway near the University of Miami, with telehealth available in Florida, Maryland, and PSYPACT states.