17/06/2026
Has your child's sleep suddenly gotten worse and you can't figure out why?
More night wakings. Early mornings. Increased settling support. Sleep that seems to be going backwards for no obvious reason.
This has been our reality lately.
My daughter has always been a pretty good sleeper, aside from the occasional illness or disruption to routine. But over the last year, her sleep slowly started to decline. More wakings. More unsettled nights.
Then over the last few months, things escalated.
She started snoring.
The other night, while lying beside her in the middle of the night, I noticed her breathing pause for around 10 seconds.
What we had initially put down to life changes and disruptions has now led to a diagnosis of a sleep disorder, and we're looking at surgery later this year to help resolve it.
Why am I sharing this?
Because sometimes sleep challenges aren't behavioural.
Sometimes they're medical.
If your child snores, sleeps with their mouth open, breathes through their mouth, or you have concerns about their breathing while asleep, it's worth booking an appointment with your GP and asking whether a referral to an ENT is appropriate.
As a sleep consultant, this is one of the reasons I always look at the whole child before recommending any sleep strategy.
No amount of sleep training can resolve an underlying medical condition.
Sometimes the biggest step towards better sleep is identifying what's happening beneath the surface.
Have you ever had a medical issue impacting your child's sleep that you didn't initially realise was there?
