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Not-So-Silent Night:
Children and Snoring By Carma Haley
There are 84 different ways your sleep can be negatively affected, according to the American Sleep Disorders Association. Insomnia, sleepwalking, talking or eating in your sleep, sleep apnea, bedwetting and snoring are just a few.
Of the 84 ways, snoring is one of the most common problems that affect millions of people throughout the world each night -- 35 percent of those people are children.
Experts say children need periods of uninterrupted sleep -- it is important for their physical and emotional health as well as growth and development. A good night's sleep helps children perform better at school, comprehend, problem solve and keep their attention on tasks. However, when a child has a sleep disorder, such as obstructive sleep apnea (better known as snoring), their sleep patterns may be disrupted, which affects how they function during waking hours.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, no one sleeps through the night without waking -- adults or children. From birth until death, people will go through various stages of light and deep sleep, as well as the normal cycles of awakening that occur within. The periods of wakening are brief, so we learn to return to sleep on our own.
In addition, since these episodes are so brief, we oftentimes don't even remember them in the morning. But when a sleep disruption occurs, our sleep patterns are altered. It becomes harder to fall back to sleep and the amount of deep sleep that we need for our bodies to regenerate is decreased, resulting in sleepiness or tiredness during the day, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
"Our bodies have a rhythm of sleep and waking that they repeat each and every night of our lives," says Dr. Stephen Sheldon, director of the sleep medicine center at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "If anything occurs that disrupts this rhythm, then a sleep disorder can occur which complicates how we sleep as well as how we function during the following day."