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Family systems are dynamic, with reciprocal interactions among family members, including interactions at night and during the day. When children have sleep problems, they often awaken a parent, affecting parent sleep and subsequent parent daytime functioning. Parent behaviors, which are shaped by parental cognitions and beliefs about sleep, as well as external stressors (eg, work or marital problems), can also disrupt child sleep patterns. Thus sleep among children cannot be understood in isolation, but rather it is important to view sleep from a family context. 1 This article reviews the relationship between sleep among children and their parents from infancy through adolescence. It also reviews the added complexity for sleep in the family when a child has a chronic illness or development disorder. For the sake of brevity, we summarize all primary care roles as parents.