Sleep right way

Sleeping at the wrong time - shift work and parenthood. Your may have to work at night, staying awake when you would normally be asleep. If you only have to do this occasionally, it's quite easy to adjust. It is much harder to cope with if you do it regularly. Shift workers, doctors and nurses working all night or nursing mothers may all find that they sleep at times when they ought to be awake. It's like jet lag where rapid travel between time zones means that you are awake when everybody else is asleep.

A good way to get back to normal is to make sure that you wake up quite early at the same time every morning - whatever time you fell asleep the night before.  Use an alarm clock to help you. Make sure that you don't go to bed again before about 10 pm that night. If you do this for a few nights, you should soon start to fall asleep naturally at the right time.
Sleeping too much

You may find that you fall asleep during the day at times when you want to stay awake. This will usually be because you have not been getting enough sleep at night. If you are still falling asleep in the daytime, even after a week or two of getting enough sleep, see your doctor. Physical illnesses such as diabetes, a viral infection, or a thyroid problem, can cause this sort of tiredness.

Sleep problem:

Sleepwalking

When you sleepwalk, you appear (to other people) to wake from a deep sleep. You then get up and do things. These may be quite complicated, like walking around or going up and down stairs. This can land you in embarrassing (and occasionally dangerous) situations. Unless someone else wakes you up, you won't remember anything about it. Sleepwalking sometimes happens after a night terror (see below). If your sleep is broken or you aren't getting sleep, you are more likely to sleepwalk.

A sleepwalker should be guided gently back to bed and should not be woken up. You may need to take precautions to protect them or other people, such as locking doors and windows, or locking away sharp objects, like knives and tools.

Night terrors can happen on their own, without sleepwalking. Like a sleepwalker, a person with night terrors will appear to wake suddenly from a deep sleep. They look half-awake and very frightened, but will usually settle back to sleep without waking up completely. All you can do is sit with them until they fall asleep again.

Night terrors are different from vivid dreams or nightmares as people don't seem to remember anything about them the next morning.

Nightmares

Most of us have had frightening dreams or nightmares. They usually happen during the later part of the night, when we have our most vivid and memorable dreams. They don't usually cause problems unless they happen regularly, perhaps because of emotional distress. Nightmares often follow a distressing or life-threatening event such as a death, a disaster, an accident or a violent attack. Counselling may be helpful.