I have written an essay about children's best interests in relation to sleep. As a starting point, I have used two stories and the dilemmas from my working life. The first story depicts asituation where I go against the guardians’ interests that their child should not sleep by lettingher fall asleep anyway when she is unable to stay awake. In the second, a situation is portrayed with a child who does not show any need for sleep but who I still received instructions to get to sleep. The purpose of this essay is to explore the term child's best interests and what it means in relation to children's sleep. The questions I have started fromare: How can the wording of the child's best be interpreted in relation to the sleep problems at preschool? Why is there so little trust in educators' professional opinions about sleep? Howcan I find the balance between my own experiential knowledge and what the family claims istheir best?

This essay is divided into three different parts. A deep dive into the term the child's best interests and what it means to me as a preschool teacher seen from the perspective of laws and preschool governing documents. A scientific part where I explain the biological effects of sleep through research and scientific articles. Finally, there is a theoretical part where I start from Aristotle's concept of knowledge and Dreyfus & Dreyfus' theory of the acquisition of practical knowledge. Through these theories of practical knowledge, I land in proximityethical reasoning and its significance for my professional role.

The term child's best interests according to laws and governing documents leaves no room for interpretation for me as a preschool teacher during the time I am responsible for the child inquestion. How collaboration between preschool and home should take place, however, isunspoken even if the goal of collaboration is clear. Research has reported that night sleep is disturbed by midday naps due the total sleep per day is constant. However, it has also shownthat sleep is important for learning and memory. Furthermore, I have emphasized the importance of good sleep hygiene as there has been no research that has shown that difficulty sleeping in the evening is due to loss of midday naps. The practical knowledge together with the proximity ethics is about being able to interpret a child's need for sleep and determine the balance between teaching and care.