Parsing the DisplayObjectContainer

if you have an object with nested childs, the DisplayObjectContainer
methods getChild, getChildAt…etc. only allow the access to childs with a sibling relationship.
For instance, i have a container with a Child Sprite1 which has a Child Sprite2 and so on,
the numChildren property only shows the number of siblings which is 1 for the container in that example.

Therefore, the getChildByName method only allows the access to Sprite1.

So how can i get to deeper nested Objects in the DisplayObjectContainer?
Is there any way of ‘parsing’ the DisplayObjectContainer?
I mean, using getChildByName i would have expected to reach any child at any level with that spezific name.

Keith