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Sleep Center

 FAQs

Answers to your questions about sleep disorders and our Sleep Center

At the Sleep Center at Texas Children’s Hospital, our team specializes in care for children, teens and young adults who have sleep disorders. Our pediatric sleep medicine experts have advanced training and years of experience in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders and sleep-related breathing issues. We provide complete care for children with all types of sleep disorders and their causes, no matter how complex.

FAQs

Sleep disorders are conditions that affect your child’s ability to get the rest their body needs for proper physical and mental health and quality of life. These conditions affect your child’s sleep:

  • Quality: How well your child sleeps
  • Quantity: How many hours of sleep and wakefulness your child gets
  • Timing: When your child falls asleep and whether they can stay asleep

Sleep disorders can affect your child’s growth, development and ability to function in school, at home and in other activities. Our sleep medicine team diagnoses and treats pediatric sleep disorders and symptoms, including:

  • Breathing problems that affect sleep, such as obstructive sleep apnea and sleep-disordered breathing
  • Chronic (long-term) insomnia
  • Circadian rhythm (sleep/wake cycle) disorders
  • Narcolepsy, hypersomnia and other disorders of excessive daytime sleepiness
  • Parasomnias (disruptive sleep-related disorders) such as sleepwalking and sleep terrors
  • Seizures during sleep
  • Neurological conditions that affect sleep, such as autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and learning disabilities
  • Other conditions that affect sleep, such as asthma, bedwetting, cystic fibrosis, restless leg syndrome and sickle cell disease

When you bring your child to the Texas Children's Sleep Center, you’ll find a sleep clinic and a sleep lab. The first step is an appointment with one of our board-certified sleep medicine specialists in the Sleep Clinic. We begin by taking an extensive sleep history, asking you (and your child, if appropriate) about the problems they’re experiencing with sleep. We then do a physical exam to evaluate their overall health.

In many cases, we can diagnose a sleep disorder without a sleep study, based on our evaluation. We may recommend nonmedical treatments, such as sleep hygiene habits and cognitive behavioral therapy, to help your child sleep better.

Your child may need tests in the sleep lab, depending on their symptoms, to help us diagnose a sleep disorder. In our sleep lab, our pediatric sleep technologists perform all-night sleep studies, which our sleep medicine doctors review to confirm a diagnosis.

Learn more about what to expect during a sleep study at Texas Children’s with a story board that shows your child each step:

You and your child can watch these videos about the sleep study, including what you can bring for your child.

 

Sleep study video (English)

 

Sleep study video (Spanish subtitles)

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