How normal is it for a child to fall asleep really, really suddenly? My daughter was always a big resister of sleep from the beginning. One day when she was under 6 weeks old she slept only 23 minutes (I know cos I was timing them with a stopwatch for a disbelieving health visitor!) in 16 hours. She is now coming up to 4 and never sleeps more than 9.5 hours in every 24. Which would be fine, if not ideal for us!
But the tricky thing is that every now and then the sleep catches up with her, but she doens't have a grumpy, tired phase, she doesn't go for a lie down or anything, she just drops off! She has fallen asleep standing up against a wall, standing up against a sofa, in the process of putting on a coat she put one arm in then fell asleep. She reasonably frequently falls asleep in her food and today she fell asleep eating a sandwich, literally she went to sleep with it sticking out of her mouth! She took a bite, got part way through and put her head down for a nap and we had to go in and take the sandwich out of her mouth.
She has had some other health issues so we are loathe to turn up at the GP sounding like we think she's got something else wrong with her in case they think we are over-reacting, but is this normal? She snores like a diesel generator, so sleep apnoea is a possibility, which might be curable by taking out her very large tonsils. What do you think? I know children are able to sleep through some pretty unusual stuff, but isn't this pushing it a bit far? Or is this normal for pre-schoolers?