When your baby has a cold, that is more likely to lead to snoring. This is also the case when he has allergies, or swollen tonsils or adenoids.

In general, the issue is likely to resolve itself, and as your baby grows, his airways will expand, becoming bigger and wider. This allows your baby to breathe without making noise.

Snoring Solutions

The following solutions will help you address your baby’s snoring:

Hosing

If your pediatrician approves, you can hose your infant’s nose to help him breathe more easily. Salty nasal sprays are available in most pharmacies.

You can also opt to make a basic nasal spray for your baby. Use 8 ounces of pure water and simply add ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Squirt two or three drops of the saline solution once a day into your baby’s nose. The solution will help clear his nasal passages and ease his breathing.

You can also gently suction excess secretions by using a nasal aspirator. Here are a few good ones:

• Snotty Boss Nasal Aspirator
• NoseFrida the Snot Sucker
• Battery-Powered Snot Sucker
• Or, if you’re on a budget, a simple nasal bulb syringe will work.

Humidifying the Air

Central heating tends to dry out the air. When your baby has a clogged nose, it helps to humidify the air in his bedroom. Using a warm mist vaporizer helps to do this.

Before putting your baby to sleep, you can give him a warm bath or shower. The warm humidified air will help ease and loosen nasal secretions so that your baby can sleep more comfortably.

A humidifier helps to sustain a level of humidity that promotes ease of breathing. It is not a treatment for snoring but it helps your baby breathe and sleep more soundly.

Controlling Allergens

Your baby may also snore when he has allergies, a cold, or other respiratory conditions. Make sure that you keep the surroundings free from dust, pet dander, and other allergens that may trigger such problems. Keep your baby’s room clean and well-ventilated.

Changing Your Infant’s Sleeping Position

Your baby’s sleeping posture may trigger snoring. Research shows that a baby who sleeps on his stomach is more likely to snore compared to a baby who sleeps on his side. The latter usually sleeps more quietly.

Moreover, it is better not to encourage your newborn to sleep on his stomach. He may find it difficult to turn his head to breathe when he assumes this sleeping position.

New studies indicate that the best thing to do is to have your baby lie on his back AND tilt his head to the side. This position will decrease the prospect of airway constriction. You can alternate tilts to the right and left sides.

Do not use snoring remedies or medications that you can buy over the counter. These are not intended for children or babies.

Baby snoring is likely to gradually subside as your baby matures and his airways expand.

Health Risks Associated with Baby Snoring

If your baby’s snoring persists and grows worse, consult your pediatrician. He may conduct a polysomnogram, a test that documents your baby’s breathing patterns as he sleeps.

Heed your instincts. If your baby’s snoring makes you anxious, inform your pediatrician about it in your next visit.

The doctor will do a thorough check on your baby’s airways to make sure that there are no structural issues or serious obstructions.

It is possible that the bone between the nasal passages, or what is clinically referred to as the nasal septum, leans to one side, resulting to the partial blocking in that nostril. If this is the case, your baby is likely to compensate by breathing heavily through the other nostril. This causes noisy breathing.

Your doctor will also take a look at your baby’s throat. He will check for structural abnormalities like cysts or atypical movement of palate.

Your doctor will observe how your baby breathes. There are some babies who have laryngomalacia, a peculiarity that results in noisy breathing. A baby with this condition usually has underdeveloped cartilage which is unable to keep the nasal passages open.

If there are structural problems behind your baby’s snoring, your pediatrician will refer you to a sleep specialist or an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Specialist who will determine if your baby needs further evaluation or treatment.

Conclusion

Structural problems may cause baby snoring. In general, however, baby snoring is simply a result of immature airways and the bubbly secretions that fill them, causing the soft tissues along the airways to vibrate. The appropriate snoring solution will easily improve the condition.

Author Bio–
Katherine Dilworth is a wife, mother and a blogger and she writes on caseydilworth.com, this blog provides exclusive information on Why Do People Snore and Snoring Solutions.

The post My Baby Is Snoring: Should I Be Concerned? appeared first on The Baby Sleep Site - Baby / Toddler Sleep Consultants.

If your baby or toddler is waking often at night, you are no doubt struggling to find the reason why (and that list of reasons for night waking can be long!). You’re no doubt doing all you can to ensure your baby is well-rested with adequate daytime naps, well-nourished, comfortably-dressed at bedtime, and that you always kick off the night with a sleep-inducing bedtime routine.

And if you’ve been reading our blog for awhile, then you may also be working on sleep coaching by gently weaning your child away from sleep associations, and ensuring that your baby or toddler can fall asleep independently. (That is the root of sleeping through the night, after all.)

BUT…what if you’ve done your due diligence, and your baby is STILL waking often at night? Or, even worse, what if your baby is waking often at night, and is cranky and grumpy and seems overly tired during the day?

We’re looking in today’s article at an under-diagnosed, often-hidden reason why a number of babies and toddlers wake at night and aren’t getting the rest they need: sleep apnea.

Why Sleep Apnea May Be Pediatric Medicine’s Most Damaging Oversight

First, a disclaimer – we are not doctors, and we do not dispense medical advice. If you suspect your child has a medical condition that’s affecting sleep, we urge you to make a beeline for your doc’s office, and to get an evaluation by a medical professional.

Okay, now that that’s out there – let’s talk about sleep apnea. If you’re like me, sleep apnea is a term that’s barely on your radar as a parent – because isn’t that something that adults suffer from?

Well, yes – but kids do, too. Including babies. And it’s becoming clearer and clearer that sleep apnea (particularly obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA) is wildly under-diagnosed among children. Statistically, around 1% of children have sleep apnea diagnoses, but according to this article, it’s more probable that 10% of children actually have this problem.

Why does this matter? Because sleep apnea causes a whole host of serious problems, including developmental delays, failure to thrive (in infants), ADHD (in big kids), memory and learning problems, headaches, frequent nighttime waking, chronic over tiredness, and general crankiness and irritability. In rare cases, the complications of sleep apnea (including frequent exhaustion and irritability) can lead to extreme problems, like the case of a young Chicago boy whose sleep apnea made him so tired, it nearly caused him to be expelled from school and sent to a behavioral health hospital.

These serious complications of sleep apnea in children have led some to call its under-diagnosis pediatric medicine’s most damaging oversight.

Why Sleep Apnea In Babies and Toddlers Matters, Too

Do a quick Google search, and you’ll see that the majority of sleep apnea articles out there are geared towards adults – and that makes sense, when you consider that sleep apnea affects more adults than it does children. It’s also true that children will often outgrow mild sleep apnea problems, while adults won’t.

But here’s the thing – sleep apnea in babies and toddlers absolutely shouldn’t be ignored, or dismissed as a small or insignificant problem. Sleep apnea seriously impacts your baby’s oxygen levels at night, and is damaging to the overall quality of your child’s sleep. Babies and toddlers with sleep apnea tend to wake more often at night than kiddos without, and even when they’re asleep, their sleep isn’t as high-quality as the sleep of child without sleep apnea.

Types of Sleep Apnea

Let’s back up a bit and identify the two main types of sleep apnea that you’ll want to be aware of: Central Sleep Apnea and Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea is the more common type, and impacts older babies, toddlers, children, and adults. With obstructive sleep apnea, sleep is interrupted because the airway is actually partially blocked (which can happen for a variety of reasons). Central sleep apnea is less common, and usually occurs in premature babies; with central sleep apnea, the brain fails to send the proper signals to the muscles that control breathing.

An easy way to keep this straight is to remember that obstructive sleep apnea means your child has trouble breathing due to the airway being blocked; central sleep apnea means your child stops breathing altogether for a brief period of time (up to 20 seconds, usually).

Now, it’s important to note that while central sleep apnea is not the same thing as SIDS, it can be fatal – therefore, it’s important to treat it seriously. Here’s a tip from Miriam, our resident nurse:

“Pauses in breathing of 19 seconds or less are common in newborns, and as long as it is not accompanied by a slowed heart rate, change in color or muscle tone, it’s considered to be harmless and common. If pauses in breathing are 20 seconds or longer, however, or less than 20 seconds but accompanied by a slow heart rate, change in color, or muscle tone then it’s time for a trip to the ER for diagnosis.”

Keep in mind that premature infants are especially prone to central sleep apnea, and typically need to wear apnea monitors to ensure safe nighttime sleep.

Symptoms and Causes of Sleep Apnea

So, what are the signs of sleep apnea for which you should be on the lookout? Glad you asked! Central sleep apnea is fairly easy to detect – your baby will stop breathing for a noticeable period of time – but obstructive sleep apnea can be much harder to spot. It also tends to last much longer than central sleep apnea, and not all children outgrow it.

Significant symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea include…

• Snoring
• Loud, noisy breathing (especially mouth breathing)
• Frequent nighttime wakings
• Early morning waking
• Restless sleeping, and strange sleeping positions

Additional problems that may be related to sleep apnea, but aren’t necessarily red flags, include….

• Recurring sore throats or tonsillitis
• Asthma that isn’t well-controlled, despite medication and medical care
• Constant ear infections
• Constant overtiredness, despite a healthy sleep schedule and healthy sleep habits.

Once your child is older, you’ll want to watch for these “big kid” symptoms of sleep apnea:

• Daytime sleepiness at preschool or during class, in spite of what seems like adequate nighttime sleep.
• Difficulty waking up in the morning
• Difficulty falling asleep at bedtime.
• Bed-wetting (in children who are potty-trained and otherwise dry during the day)
• ADD or ADHD diagnosis that isn’t helped by medication

One Last Word: Fixing Sleep Apnea May Not Fix All Your Sleep Problems

If sleep apnea is your baby or toddler’s ONLY sleep problem, then getting medical care and addressing the sleep apnea may very well mean your sleep issues are solved.

However, if your child does not yet know how to fall asleep independently, and relies on you for help with falling asleep, then addressing the sleep apnea – while it’s a step in the right direction – will likely not lead to sleeping through the night. Instead, you’ll need to focus on gently teaching your baby how to fall asleep without your help. And you don’t have to do that alone – you can call in a pro to help! Our team of expert sleep consultants is ready to create a Personalized Sleep Plan® just for your family. The plan will walk you through every step of the sleep coaching journey, and will be 100% personalized to your child’s personality and needs, and will mesh with your parenting goals and philosophies.

Browse our list of consultation package options here.

Once you make your choice and purchase, you will immediately receive an e-mail with your Helpdesk login information. You’ll be able to log in and get started right away – it’s that simple!

Want more information about how personalized help works? Check out our FAQ page here, and get answers.

Has your little one struggled with sleep apnea? Any tips to share with other parents? Share below!

 
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