Sleep Diary & Pattern Logger
Track your child's sleep each night — bedtimes, wakings, mood, and patterns over time.
Why track your child's sleep?
Sleep problems are extremely common in autistic and ADHD children — research suggests between 50 and 80 percent of autistic children experience significant sleep difficulties. Tracking sleep over several weeks creates a picture that is almost impossible to build from memory alone: which nights are worst, what time the child typically wakes, how long it takes them to fall asleep, and whether patterns link to other factors like screen time, exercise, or school days.
How a sleep log helps you get support
GPs and paediatricians often ask parents to keep a sleep diary before they can refer a child to a sleep clinic or prescribe sleep medication. Having a clear, consistent log of bedtime, sleep onset, night waking, and morning wake time is exactly what they need. A sleep diary also helps you spot whether the problem is falling asleep, staying asleep, or early waking — which points toward different solutions.
Using a sleep diary as DLA and PIP evidence
A sleep diary is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence you can provide when applying for or renewing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for a child with SEND. DLA night-time care component awards are based on demonstrating that a child needs supervision or attention during the night — and a consistent, dated sleep diary is exactly the kind of objective evidence that supports this.
Decision makers at the DWP are looking for specifics: how often your child wakes, how long for, what you need to do when they wake (comfort, medication, reorientation), and the cumulative impact on you as the parent or carer. This tool logs all of those details nightly, and the export function generates a summary you can print and include with your DLA or PIP form or send to your child's paediatrician to support a supporting letter.
For EHCP applications, a sleep diary provides evidence of the wider impact of your child's needs on their ability to access education — persistent sleep difficulties affect attention, emotional regulation, and learning, which are all relevant to an EHCP assessment.
How to use this tool
Log each night as you go — bedtime, how long your child took to fall asleep, any night waking, and how they seemed in the morning. The Stats tab shows patterns across the week and month so you can see trends without doing the maths yourself. You can export a summary to share with a GP, SENCO, or sleep specialist.
Everything stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded or stored. No account needed. See all free Helpset tools →
📋 Using this tool as evidence?
Sleep records are powerful evidence for EHCP applications and PIP or DLA claims — demonstrating night-time supervision needs and the cumulative impact of sleep difficulties on your child's ability to access education and daily life.