Sleep Study

It is important to diagnose if your child has a sleep-related disorder because the consequences of leaving it untreated can be significant in the long term.

Sleep-related disorders can impact on the heart and the brain, or on mood and behaviour. For example, having disturbed sleep at night might make your child tired the next day and make it difficult to concentrate at school.

You and your child will need to attend a nursery nurse-led Sleep Study Clinic in Children’s Outpatients. These are currently run on a Monday and Thursday between 9.30am and 12.30 pm.

Your child’s appointment is to fit the sleep study equipment to them and to ensure you are aware of how to use it too.

We will fill in some forms with you and there will be a chance for you to ask any questions you might have.

You will be sent home with all the relevant information and equipment in a numbered bag. We ask that you contact Bergholt Ward overnight if you have any problems.

Once you are at home, when your child is still awake but ready for bed, you will need to set up the equipment as follows:

• a soft probe wrapped around your child’s toe or finger to monitor his or her oxygen levels while asleep
• two stretchy bands placed around your child’s chest and abdomen to record breathing movements
• a small tube placed on the edge of your child’s nostrils to monitor breathing rates and flow pattern.

Once these sensors have been attached, your child will be able to sleep normally.

We ask that your child is ready for the sleep study by 7 pm as our sleep study technician requires 5-8 hours of recording to report their findings. This does not have to be your child’s bedtime, but we ask you to continue on with their usual bedtime routine.

Sleep studies are painless and there are no needles involved. The pack comes with a story to help children understand what is asked of them.

We ask that you return the equipment the following morning between 8am and 11am to the same Children’s Outpatients department. This will take around 10 minutes and you will be able to park in the lay-by outside the Emergency Department for 20 minutes for free.

This 10 minutes with us is to ensure all the equipment is returned and signed for, so we can then upload your child’s data on the system.