Sleep study for young child?

[Anonymous]

Has anybody had a sleep study done on their young child? My DD is 4 and I think we need to do a sleep study. We have seen an ENT about getting her tonsils out but it was inconclusive as to whether or not we needed to go ahead with the surgery. Her tonsils are HUGE and she snores a lot while sleeping. I took a short video of her sleeping to share with the ENT and they didn't see any sleep apnea during that video. I am worried about her not getting enough oxygen while she is sleeping and not getting good quality sleep.

She is grumpy all the time and says she is tired a lot. She goes to bed around 9ish and wakes up at 7ish and still takes a 2 hour nap during the day. Maybe this is just her personality and mood but if there is a chance we could improve her sleep and her attitude I am willing to do anything. However having tonsil surgery is a big deal and I want to make sure we are covering all our bases before we do the surgery.

Any suggestions on where to get a sleep study? Or any suggestions about getting tonsil surgery on a young child?

[Anonymous]

I wouldnt see why you wouldnt get a sleep study and a second opinion on the tonsils.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleep-newzzz/201302/the-risks-sleep-disordered-breathing-in-children

[Anonymous]

You can’t “see” sleep apnea that easily. A sleep study is necessary to get a good picture of your child’s sleep patterns and breathing patterns. I did the sleep study for my child when tonsil removal was recommended because of how large they were. I was shocked to find out my child stopped breathing multiple times an hour and without a sleep study I would never have known.

Children’s hospital has a great sleep clinic. I’d have the study done and I’d also get a second opinion on having tonsils removed. It’s a difficult surgery and not very pleasant. I wouldn’t do unless absolutely necessary.

[Anonymous]

ENT requested a sleep study for my fresh 3 year old. We had it done at Children's Hospital. We were the first to arrive but the last to be called back. If I had to do it again, I would request that we be put in a room first. Apparently they fight over who will have the little kids. The person that hooked up all the wires on my kid said that they typically pull straws because they hate getting the small kids. And I was pissed over how matter of fact he made the comment when he was showing minor annoyance with my child. Which by the way, she did an amazing job sitting still but I had no idea it would take 45 minutes to an hour. He screwed it up the first time causing my child to be awake even longer. She was actually falling asleep while he was hooking her up and getting annoyed with her head bobs. I had to hold it together for my kid since she was sleeping in a new place with all kinds of crazy wires attached to her.

Other than that, sleep studies suck. My 3 year old requested I sleep in her bed with her, it was terribly uncomfortable. But first world problems, right?

[Anonymous]

Our DS had 2 sleep studies (both while under 4 yrs old) and our DD has had 3 sleep studies. We've done them at Children's Hospital and a pediatric sleep center in Fairfax. While the one in Fairfax was easier logistically (parking, wait etc) the ones at Childrens Hospital were best for quality of staff and accuracy (yes, the fairfax location gave us a false reading showing severe apnea then the repeat study at children's showed almost normal). Search apnea as there have been other threads on this. Our ENT suggested our DS get his tonsils removed and a year later the surgeon said he wouldn't even operate on him because DS tonsils were normal??? and that removing them would have no impact on apnea... then a year later our DS sleep study showed normal. Apparently tonsil size relative to child changes from 2-5yo and some kids just stop having apnea - surgeon at Childrens said even a millimeter of airway growth can make the difference in a 4-5yo. We were skeptical but two years later the same thing happened for our DD. And we were seeing doctors (ENT, Plastic Surgeon) at Children's.