Childhood Insomnia and Sleeping Patterns
Children suffering from childhood insomnia can dread the coming of the night, since it would yet be another sleepless one for them. No matter how old or young your child is, for sure, if he or she has childhood insomnia, then he/she sees it to be an unpleasing experience.
Insomnia in children can actually show in different forms, unlike in adults where difficulty to sleep is the main symptom. Here are some of the most common sleeping behaviors that those with childhood insomnia manifest.
On Guard for Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking is one common pattern that childhood insomnia can show. Although it seems as if it were harmless, sleepwalking, which is also known as Somnambulism, could actually bring danger to your child. Regardless of the common belief or saying that children should be awakened gently for them to avoid having serious injuries, if you let your kid sleepwalk, he/she can fall down or go out of your house and walk into traffic.
Sleepwalking has a number of possible causes. For one, the condition can be something that runs in the family. Another would be having an undeveloped central nervous system that is more common with children and is frequently, but not all the time, outgrown when adulthood arrives.
Bed Wetting
This behavior, which is also termed as Sleep Enuresis, could be caused by several psychiatric disorders, urinary tract infection, diabetes, epilepsy or sleep apnea. However, there are times in which no serious reason is responsible for the behavior and that the child simply needs to be emptied before going to bed. If you think that a major reason is behind your child’s bed wetting, then he/she must go under a full physical check-up to rule out different medical conditions.
Once the cause is pointed out, behavior modification, medications and alarm devices, could be used to take care of the condition.
Sleep Apnea
This is yet another sleeping problem that children with childhood insomnia can manifest. In this condition, airflow from the nostrils and mouth are blocked, causing the child to be prevented from breathing for a maximum of 10 seconds.
This is quite a scary condition to have and symptoms include color change, tone change, and noisy breathing when sleeping. The good thing is children have the ability to outgrow this behavior.
These are just some of the common sleeping patterns that children with childhood insomnia can show. However, not all kids can show all patterns and some don’t even show one. It could be the case that a child with insomnia simply can’t sleep at all, but when the time he/she falls asleep, not other sleeping behaviors manifest.