Short pauses in breath when asleep 9 months old

[sharkstale]

Hi, I'm just looking for reassurance that this can be normal.

So firstly, my 9 month old is a terrible sleeper and wakes frequently. Some nights this can be every half hour, although other nights he can sleep for hours without a wake up.

Due to the frequency of his wake ups, we co-sleep once I go to bed, so he's next to me all night and a number of times I've noticed that he takes short pauses in breathing, maybe 4-5 seconds. Once he starts breathing again, he whimpers a lot in his sleep, and his breathing is a bit weird, hard to describe but like when you've been crying a lot and you sob and find it hard to catch your breath afterwards. This will carry on for some time until I usually wake him to snap him out of it.

At first, I thought maybe he was having nightmares, but I've noticed the whimpering/sobbing type breathing always comes after a short pause in breath.

I've read up on sleep apnea but he doesn't pause for as long as 20 seconds and doesn't do the gasp described, so I'm unsure about that. He's also not fatigued all day, can be generally tired some days before his nap where he's had poor sleep but it doesn't sound like the fatigue described with sleep apnea.
I've taken him to the gp to have his tonsils checked to see if they are enlarged but have been told they're fine.

Does anybody think they may have an explanation for this please?

Adenoids? My dd had her tonsils and adenoids out. Wouldn’t have known about them without the issues with recurrent tonsillitis. They were very enlarged causing her breathing to cut off (this was how I described it) and she snored like an old man. Someone else might have a better idea but that sprung to mind.

babies just do that and I don't know why. But mine did, heck sometimes I do as an adult, too

I thought this too as his dad has his adenoids removed. Although I'm not too clued up on it tbh and thought they were the same thing as tonsils, so I'd ruled that out when the gp said his tonsils are fine. I could go back and ask. He doesn't snore though, I should have mentioned that in my op.

Okay thank you, that's good to know

Sounds like his adenoids. They're not something that the GP can check as they're right up at the back of the nose. One pause an hour can be normal but more than that can be sleep apnoea. Pauses don't have to be that long. My DC had them removed and the pauses were nowhere near 20 seconds. Their tonsils were fine. ENT diagnosed off the back of pauses in breathing, snoring and poor sleep.

Okay thank you. The gp did say if I keep a log and try to get some videos, he will refer him to peadiatrician, I just need to give him something to give the referral some basis. He doesn't do it every night (that I know of), I think more so when he's on his back. No snoring though. Do you think the whimpering could be because it scares him?

As I understand it, sleep apnea stops them from getting proper deep sleep. The pause in breathing startles them out of deep sleep. The whimpering is more likely him being tired because his sleep is disturbed. His body was ready for deep sleep but can't get it.

Try setting your phone up to record him.

@FlibbertyflooAw, I feel so sorry for him :( some nights he just keeps sitting up, not fully awake, just sobbing frustrated, like he doesn't know what to do. Bless him.

I will do, thank you for your help.

Baby has sleep apnea, start the referral for ent now

I saw my gp today who said he'll put the referral in as soon as I gather evidence.

I've just sat in the bedroom with my son for around an hour and half and he's woken plenty of times but with no pauses in breathing. Would this still indicate sleep apnea?
There's no noise, no snoring, closed mouth.

Could still be. Mine wasn't consistent. Depended on stage of sleep, position etc. Much worse when they had a cold. We didn't have snoring at that age. That came later.

Okay, thank you for your replies.

Yeah keep recording! I was dismissed do many times, mine ended up having A tonsils and adenoids removed as they only diagnosed her sleep apnea right at the end of the process despite me saying it, the whole time. We know our babies. I got evidence and showed it to ENT and they were like yeah they were huge super similar to what you are describing xx

Its the early stages of sleeping for the baby, i believe it is normal, give it a few months and check the progress and the doctor can assure you also. All the best.