3yo - obstructive sleep apnea/adenoids

[Katy85]

Hi everyone

Does anyone have any experience with toddlers experiencing difficulties breathing at night.
My 3 and half year old has only recently started having trouble breathing clearly at night. he's always been a fairly silent sleeper and has always breathed through his mouth rather than nose, so its very noticeable over the past few days that he's struggling to get a breath. He takes lots of shallow breaths, sounds like something obstructing his airways stopping him taking a full breath, then its followed with a big gasp.
Its not waking him up, maybe just making him a little wriggly and tossing and turning. Tried waking him to give him a drink, re-positioning from back to side, all no effect.
I have got him a doctors appointment for later in the week but hoping someone has any experience or advice. Less/more head elevation, could it just be linked to a cold and his adenoids are swollen and therefore will go down of their own accord etc?

Has he had a cold?
My lo had these symptoms after a cold. The cold would go away and we'd be left with the snoring/apnea type breathing. In her case it was adenoids but it can also be tonsils.
Otrivine nose drops helped as does antibiotics (although antibiotics doesn't work for everyone). She's eventually just had them removed.

Film him asleep and show your gp and ask for an ent referral. You'll need the video as gp's can be pretty bad on sleep related illnesses as they can't see it themselves so a video helps them.

Oh and yes elevate head as much as possible and a nice cold room to sleep in if possible so cold air to breathe

Yes my 2 year old had his tonsils out due to sleep apnoea. He was very restless at night, sweaty and you could see him having trouble breathing. We took a video of it. It's really made a difference to his sleep now.

Really helpful info thanks.

I put cushions under his mattress last night to raise the top end, he was quieter but still the odd gasp/loud snore here and there and that's hardly a long term solution. And trouble is, if he wakes up (which he is doing now) he comes wandering into our room to cuddle in with me and it starts up again. So I ended up leaving him and his father asleep in our bed (his dad can literally sleep through an earthquake) and I slept in his bed just to get some peace and quiet.

He's had a little bit of a cold, but nothing too bad and certainly not as bad as some colds have been and this didn't happen then. I put his calpol plug-in vapour thing on last night to help his nose, but he really doesn't breathe through his nose at night.

Interesting you say about the sweaty thing, he's always been a sweaty sleeper too, since he was newborn, his pillow gets soaked.

I think i'll monitor him again tonight, if he does it again i'll take both of your advice and film it so when we go to the doctors on Wednesday then we can show him exactly what's happening. Its starting to make him cranky when he wakes up, like he's not had enough sleep and he's tired before he even starts the day. Very frustrating as prior to about a week ago he'd been sleeping brilliantly, right through, quiet and dry for 11 hours straight every night. The shallow/curtailed breathing followed by a loud gasp is definitely something new, which is why I want to get it sorted and nip it in the bud.

Hi little bit of experience of this and in slightly similar situation. Sorry for jumping on the post. My ds (almost 2) has always been a loud snoring sleeper since he was a baby. He did used to go quiet in his sleep then gasp for air. TBH I never thought much of it until he went for grommets fitting and they removed his adenoids too as they were massive. After he had his adenoids removed he was then a silent sleeper even with the volume turned up on the monitor you couldn't really hear him. Anyhow last few weeks he's started really snoring again and after he went for another grommet fitting yesterday we were told he now has enlarged tonsils which could be causing the snoring. We were advised to monitor his snoring and make an appt if he started gasping or breathing differently in his sleep. He also had a cold a few weeks ago so we were told it could be an after effect of that and to monitor it.
I'd definitely get a Dr's appointment and go armed with as much evidence and info as you can as unfortunately where I am it's really hard to get the GP to refer you to ENT. With it only going in for a few weeks though may be an after effect of a cold (fingers crossed that's what I'm hoping for with my ds and he'll go back to been a quiet sleeper again soon). Oh and my ds has always been a sweaty sleeper too but he also gets a sweaty head regularly when it's warm or when he's playing too.
Sorry no advice really on how to improve it other than if they use a dummy sometimes ds snoring is slightly better when he's asleep with his dummy in.
Apologies for waffling on for so long. Hope you get some good advice at your gp appointment.

Jump away! Any advice/experience is helpful

He slept in with me last night again (he's just a bit clingy with me recently) and same problem occurred. I managed to get some good recordings of it and we're going to the doctors this afternoon. Although he is a good GP he has a reputation for getting them in getting them out quickly, he flies through his appointments so i'll need to stand firm for an ENT referral.

Thanks everyone, a common theme between you all of either enlarged adenoids or tonsils

It has to be really bad for the GP to refer. Our Ds had enlarged tonsils and adenoids and could hardly breathe at night. He had a cold and it was frightening to watch. We filmed it and got a referral after a lot of pushing and A&E visits. The wait is very long think 9 months to actual op.

We only had to wait 3 months for an op - I think it depends where you are and how urgent your case is.
Agree they'll only take action if it's really bad as they can shrink in their own and also most children sort themselves out as they older too.

Yes it may be 3 months to op but it can take 3 months to get an appointment too. Our case was actually potentially serious but so are hundreds of other children's aswell. Also the surgeons don't like to operate until he child is 4 years old.

Mine was 13 months when she had her op. It really does depend on the case and the dr.

We chased our referral as ds had a constant ear infection for 4 months that hadn't cleared with antibiotics. An out of hours doctor then chased the referral and we were seen within a week. I was extremely pushy for the referral though. He had his first operation within 8 weeks of first ent appt. How did the GP appt go today Katy?

DS1 had tonsils and adenoids out for obstructive sleep apnoea age 2.10y. His breathing was stopping many times a night and it was waking him too - he was waking scared because of the massive jolt he'd have when his breathing kicked in again.

He's also always been hot and sweaty at night, and although the surgery sorted his breathing, he still gets hot and sweaty and still wakes every night (although nowhere near as many times as before).

Our gp did an ent referral as soon as we went and explained how is symptoms. The consultant said they'd always look to take tonsils and adenoids out in kids with osa because of the impact on sleep and therefore growth and development. He'd had several bouts of tonsillitis, but you'd apparently need to have it 7or more times a year before they'd remove them just for that reason.

The doctor had a look down his throat and said tonsils were fine, there's a chance its just swollen adenoids due to a viral infection so we need to monitor for a bit longer and come back if it continues and he'll get an ENT referral. He also prescribed him an inhaler for the interim, only for bedtimes though to make sure his chest is opened and clear to be sure that's not contributing to the difficulties.

I'd say last night was a mixed bag, a good few periods of peaceful sleep, some difficult breathing again.

We'll just have to keep an eye on it and go back if we need to. His father has the same problem though and goes through periods of breathing difficulties at night so maybe its like father like son and it'll flare up every now and again.