Posts Tagged ‘children’

Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder in children can now be traced back to infancy, as this article has shown. Bipolar children were found to be more difficult to console in infancy, exhibit a decreased need for sleep or difficulty going to sleep. In addition, recurring nightmares or night terrors have also been present in these children. On top of the sleep problems being a symptom, these children may seem more gifted in their “movement, language, and thought patterns” and creative in their writing, art, music, etc.

Interestingly enough, there is some overlap in ADHD symptoms and Bipolar Disorder. Among other symptoms, ADHD children may not sleep as long as other kids, but they don’t have the nightmares bipolar kids have. ADHD kids are generally not crabby after waking up quickly and are not generally gifted like bipolar kids.

This is actually a little scary in that some of the descriptions of Bipolar Disorder and ADHD sound a little like my eldest son (no nightmares). I thought this information was interesting, as they find out more about ADHD and Bipolar Disorder. Weissbluth theorizes that because they know children with ADHD have sleep-related problems, that it’s possible the sleep problems led to the hyperactivity and ADHD (they still don’t know which comes first). He illustrates one example of how this might happen in his book and talks about chronic fatigue leading to an increased amount of neurotransmitters (adrenaline, noradrenaline, and dopamine), causing more activity in the child both day and night (less restful sleep). This article also discusses the relationship between sleep deprivation and the symptoms of ADHD being magnified. If this is true, this is yet another reason to help your child learn healthy sleep habits such that it does not lead to chronic fatigue and sleep loss, leading to a potential ADHD outcome. As I mentioned in my article about behavior problems and sleep, it is imperative that my eldest son gets enough sleep and if my ability to give him healthy sleep habits has made it less likely he will be later diagnosed with ADHD, even better!

Do you ever notice your child get hyper when he isn’t sleeping enough?

Science Daily recently reported in this article that certain sleep disorders are linked to behavior issues in kids. The study showed that children with sleep disordered breathing such as snoring or sleep apnea and who were also overweight, did not sleep enough, or had another sleep problem such as insomnia, were more likely to have behavior issues.

More than half of the participants with sleep disordered breathing who were studied were either overweight or at risk for being overweight (see this post about the link between sleep and obesity).

In addition 36% were identified as “short sleepers” and almost half had another sleep problem diagnosed in addition to the snoring or sleep apnea. “Forty-seven percent had a history of behavioral problems and 23 percent had a reported diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” Researchers were surprised that the strongest predictor of behavior problems was not the severity of the sleep apnea or snoring, but the presence of another sleep problem such as insomnia.

Of course, I notice my eldest son’s behavior plummet when he stops getting enough sleep. Just last week he accidentally napped and it resulted in he not falling asleep until 9:45 p.m. and waking at 6:50 p.m. the next day (he usually sleeps about 12 hours). That led to yet another nap and another late night and it snowballed into 2 mornings of one hour tantrums (ugh). Pitiful to watch and it breaks your heart when you know the reason, but can’t do anything much about it. What we ended up doing was skipping rest time on Saturday, so there was no nap and he was able to go to bed at a very good 7 p.m. and he slept until 7:15 or so the next day and we had our happy boy back. So, even though he doesn’t have sleep apnea (that I know of, but he does snore a little), I did not need a study to tell me that less sleep = behavior problems. But, I thought this was an interesting study to share. I am sure there are plenty of parents who feel they are doing all the right things and putting their child to bed early, and although it appears (s)he may be getting enough sleep, if their child has more going on than meets the eye, the parent may not understand the poor behavior. As my son grows and starts school, I can see how sensitive he is to missed sleep and how critical it will be that he get enough.

Do you notice a big spike in behavior problems when your child doesn’t sleep enough?

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