Home pulse oximeter showing irregular heartbeat on toddler

[poisonivy29]

My son is just 3.
We are currently waiting for an appt with an ENT due to enlarged tonsils and snoring/restlessness and night.
I bought a new thermometer recently and it came with a free pulse oximeter with one of those little waveform things on that show pulse rate.
His sats are between 94-96 while he's asleep (only tested just now and he wasn't snoring) but whilst watching it I noticed his heartbeat isn't regular at all. It has some regular beats then long line and then a couple fast beats etc. no pattern and a bit all over the place and some of the flat lines are longer than others.
Is this normal?

It’s unlikely to be a paediatric pulse oximeter and it won’t work as well on children. Just put your hand on his chest and see what you think.

As someone with an arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) I would say those sorts of devices are known to be inaccurate. The Apple Watch is good at picking things up but nothing is designed to be reliable in children.

Are you able to check his pulse manually? I really wouldn't read too much into it from my experience.

So I've put my hand on his chest and also checked his pulse on his wrist and it definitely doesn't feel regular.

Probably something called sinus arrhythmia which is normal.

If you’re still worried, call OOH or see GP next week

Does he seem well in himself apart from the ongoing issues? I'm really not sure what to suggest as I only have experience of this in myself. Possibly out of hours for advice.

Does he show any signs of sleep apnea? I know this can cause an irregular pulse.

Yes @Twinwoo that's why we're waiting for an ENT referral with suspected sleep apnea (due to his gigantic tonsils)
If that causes an irregular pule then I guess it all ties in together.

It's possible but as previous poster mentioned there are many totally normal causes of irregular heartbeats.

I hope you manage to get to the bottom of it all

Following as my toddler also snores horribly and we will see the GP about it and hope to be referred to a specialist

Pulse oximeter wave forms are not heart tracings. They indicate how good the signal from the probe is. They react to every movement.

(Paediatric nurse)

Pulse oximeters for adults are not at all reliable for children. The contact between the finger and the machine isn’t good enough. I can rarely get a reading for my 5yo on ours.

What the nurse said ^

I would definitely mention this to the doctor. They need to do an ecg to check for an irregular heartbeat.

Ps there is no such thing as a 'paediatric' pulse oximeter, it's the size of the probe that makes the difference.

The clippey ones are too big for children. The stick on ones are more accurate.