Concerned about nighttime breathing

[SloeBerri]

My youngest, a 3 year old, had a series of ear and tonsil infections a few months ago. I’m confident they’ve passed and I’ve used saline spray for her nose for a few weeks and I’m confident now there’s no congestion.

Her breathing at night is still extremely difficult. Not just snoring, but at times her rib cage is really flaring as she struggles to breathe. Her mouth is open, it’s not her nose, but there’s still a stressed sucking/ wheeze sound and it looks like she’s struggling. Sometimes she’s having periods of huge gaps in her breathing before gasping and a few rapid breaths. Other times she snores. The whole thing looks scary. It’s more than normal snoring.

I’ve taken videos for the GP and got an appointment, but does anyone have experience of this?

My dd had unusually large tonsils and sounded like she struggled to breathe at night. She was referred to ENT then they commissioned a 'sleep study' through paeds. This was done at home, she had a little clip which went over her finger and it monitored her blood oxygen levels as she slept for 3 nights. I did have to check a few times in the night it hadnt fallen off or been pulled off. From this they could see that she had sleep apnoea and her oxygen levels were dropping to a poor % when her breathing was bad. This was enough to justify removing her tonsils and now she's like a different kid, it made such a difference.