When Child Sleep Issues need more than just sleep training…
Part of my training as a specialist in pediatric sleep hygiene and behavioral coaching for families with young children, is to recognize when I am seeing things that may be outside of my scope of practice.
When parents note that mouth breathing and/or snoring are occurring with their older babies, toddlers, or preschoolers when laying in a supine position and not otherwise congested, I need to send them back to their pediatrician or refer them to a licensed medical professional who specializes in pediatric sleep disorders.
If the child is not breathing well, they will not sleep well. Evidence-based research is clear, poor sleep begets poor overall physical, mental and even social health; plaguing a child’s early school-aged years, and beyond!
The fact is, many of the sleep disorders adults struggle with, could have been recognized and resolved as young as pre-kindergarten.
We parents need to know what to look out for as early as possible, so that we can ensure our little ones are receiving proper evaluation and treatment in order to protect their most important and basic function for optimum health and safety.
There are many types of sleep disorders. The most common is where the air way is obstructed.
A treatment or therapy that is non-evasive for your child may be the best route, or even greatly enhance other treatments that your care provider recommends.
Unfortunately, it takes Western medicine a bit longer to catch on to some of the fantastic and less invasive options, such as Myofunctional Therapy.
The following video is a brief introduction to what parents should be looking out for early on. Experts in the field of myofunctional therapy for young children and adolescents, Dr. Martin Gorman and Sanda Pinkerton, present how myofunctional therapy works and why it is so important to consider, should you notice sleep and breathing issues such as listed in this important video.