Background: Caring for a sick child creates great demands for the parents. Sleep is an important aspect of wellbeing and is strongly related to stress and quality of life. Caring for a child at home gives the family the opportunity to be together in a familiar environment, but includes several sleep disturbances during the night which affects the ability to handle the situation.

Aim: To describe parents’ perceptions of circumstances influencing their own sleep, living with a child enrolled in Hospital-Based Home Care Services.

Method: This is a phenomenographic study with an inductive, exploratory design, using semi-structured interviews with main and follow-up questions. Fifteen parents with children enrolled in Hospital-Based Home Care Services were included.

Findings: The outcome space consists of four descriptive categories: s; Sleep influence mood and mood influences sleep, Support and safeness influence sleep, The child´s needs and routines influence sleep, and Me-time influences sleep.

Discussion: Parents to children in Hospital-Based Home Care Services perceive their sleep differently depending on how safe they feel with the situation. Troubling thoughts, bedtime worries, anxiety and stress affect sleep negatively. Safeness is prerequisite for sleep. Shared responsibility and social support help the parents to cope with the daily life and thus facilitate sleep. The parents adjust their routines after the cild´s needs to find time for sleep and relaxation. Me-time and physical activity was perceived as important tools to improve coping and sleeping.