You said that you were concerned about your child's sleep problems. You said that your child has times at night when s/he seems to stop breathing. You said your child does not sleep very well because of this. You also said that this leaves your child feeling very sleepy during the day. Your child's sleeping problems may be due to a sleep-related breathing problem. Some children with these problems have Breathing-Related Sleep Disorder.
Your child is probably very tired during the day-much more than other children his/her age. Your child is so sleepy because s/he wakes up a lot at night in an effort to breathe normally. Your child may be most tired when s/he is doing something like riding in the car or watching television. Taking a nap may not help your child feel more rested. In addition, s/he may have a dull headache after napping.
Your child may have one or more of the following breathing problems when s/he sleeps:
The signs of a breathing related sleep problem can be hard to see in young children. Some of the following things may be signs that your child has breathing related sleep problem:
This disorder is often seen in school-aged children with big tonsils. Middle-aged, overweight men also often have this problem. Adult men are 8 times more likely to have this problem than are women. In children, the same number of girls and boys have this problem. This problem may run in families.
Adapted in part from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) (1994) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Primary Care (DSM-PC) (1996).