Toddler biting his tongue in his sleep - AIBU to be concerned?

[SinkGirl]

Posted a few weeks ago about my DS (2) waking up covered in blood and then discovering a large ulcerated wound on his tongue. Mentioned that earlier in the year he had some smaller incidents of bleeding from his mouth and we thought they were teething related (he doesn’t stick his tongue out much, never has, and I’d never spotted any injuries).

It’s just healed up. Night before last there was a small amount of blood in a drool stain on his sheet. Last night I woke up to him shouting (not crying) to find blood everywhere again. Gave him some painkillers and sat with him until he settled down. This morning I can see a wound / bruising on the other side of his tongue.

Last time I posted people said I should be concerned because it could be nocturnal seizures. We rushed him to an emergency appointment as the wound looked really nasty and the GP clearly thought I was overreacting and said it would heal on its own and to come back if it didn’t. I asked if it was normal for toddlers to bite their tongue so badly and he sort of shrugged and said they can do.

I’m just thinking this can’t be right can it? He’s never done it during the day so if it was down to a big tongue (which I don’t think he has) or teething wouldn’t it also happen while he was awake? And it’s not a little graze, it’s a big wound on the top and underneath just like before.

Last time he suffered for over a week and was clearly in a lot of pain, drooling a lot.

Should I take him back to the GP? Can’t tell if I’m overreacting or not. This was his sheet this morning.

Hi I have been having alot of issues with my 18 month old son doing this. He has been doing it since 9 months old. I came across this forum and wondered whether you have found a solution to this. The gp referred my son to a pediatrician and they did a EEG, they had him in for an hour and the results came back negative for epilepsy. She then discharged him which myself, the gp, the health visitor and dentist is not happy about. This only happens when he sleeps and I have took him to the emergency room and no look. I have never heard of it before.

Just looking for any advice you may have for me and to see whether your son grew out of doing it? Or did he have to have some sort of medication or gum sheild introduced?

Dummies and mouth guards are often prescribed even to older children (and adults) for things like extreme tooth grinding and tongue biting.

I know dummies are controversial these days but you might want to consider one.

I know that would help a lot but my son has always refused to have one we have tried everything to try and prevent it from happening.

My son is 4 now - he occasionally wakes up crying from ‘jumping’ himself awake .. but rarely bites his tongue in his sleep anymore. Still no concern from pediatrician or neurologist. They diagnosed him with sleep myoclonus or bruxism (jaw spasms/ grinding) - they still aren’t sure.

Here’s a few things that we did ..

we went to an ENT doctor because our sons tonsils were very large — he had previously had his adenoids out. ENT took the tonsils out around 2.5 years old.

we also started on a daily nose spray (Flonase sensimist Childrens)

im not sure if this solved it OR if it was timing.. because it was very close to 6 months from the point of it all starting at 2, but he never woke up again in a bed sheet of blood.

I’ve recently noticed him grinding his teeth - so we have a dentist Appt scheduled in a few weeks to see what’s happening there.

Hi, my son has done this since he was teething. He’s 4 next month! We’ve seen various professionals but never truely got to the bottom of it until recently. Took him to dentist again and he has a slightly fractured back tooth which she says is a classic sign of teeth grinding & that the chances are that he’s nipping his tongue when doing it. She told us some jaw exercises to do & it seemed to help. We haven’t been doing the exercises with him for a couple of months but he’s not done it thankfully.
the exercises are just open mouth as wide as he can & hold for 10 seconds, do this 4 times, then we massage his jaw (cheeks) for 20 seconds. This apparently gets rid of any jaw tension which causes grinding 🤷‍♀️

So happy I found this thread. My 13-month-old just bit his tongue during sleep yesterday at 3-4 AM (bled a little) and did it again at 9 PM (bled a lot). I took him to the children's emergency center and was told they don't know why, probably because he is teething. But there is no sign of new teeth coming out and he has been having the same number of teeth for 2-3 months now. He does grind his teeth at sleep, but this is the first time he bit his tongue, I know I heard chewing noise when it first happened, so I don't think it's seizure. But due to family history of seizure and neurological problems and thanks to recommendations from this thread, I am going to get a referral from the pediatrician to get him checked by a neurologist and also ENT doctor. I hope this is only a tooth grinding gone wrong. 🙏