Am glad that i stumbled across this forum, looks like a wonderful place for support.

Our 2 year old is going for his first sleep study on June 4th.

His "symptoms" are
*snoring
*restless sleep
*hypertrophic tonsils (Grade 4)
*enlarged turbinates
*unrefreshed awakening
*daytime sleepiness
*attention and behaviour problems
*small in stature - he has dropped from 50% to no percent

I am hoping this sleep study will help us get some answers for our little boy. Its hard being a Mum and watching your child struggle to breathe during the night. Although i am scared witless about the possibility of the T&A (am a nurse and hate generals!) if it is what he needs then so be it.

Although i am worried he isnt going to settle down for the study. Does anyone have any tips or tricks they have used? He is now 31 months old and has zero attention span, so watching DVD's like they suggest isnt going to work for him  

For the week previous, practice with stickers and string at home. When it's time for bed, put the stickers (with strings sticking out from them (need to be about 12 inches long)) on his chest, his legs and some on his face. He will probably have close to 27 at the actual sleep study, but we usually stick about 15 on at home (10 of them will be on his head in his hair).  Count how many stickers there are and how many are left when he gets up in the morning is how many ________ he gets. We use M and Ms, but pieces of popcorn have proven to sufficient bribes too.

Do this for as many nights previous as possible, explaining that soon you will go the hospital to have a special test done. But to do the test, they have to put lots of stickers on and they can feel funny, so we want you to know how they feel before you get there.

Things to bring the day of:

Star stickers to put on top of their stickers. It makes it feel more like how you did it at home. You need to use larger rectangle or circle stickers for the practicing at home.
Favorite blankets, animals, whatever. You can even put on his sheets from home if it makes him more comfortable. We bring Isaac's 3 pillows and blankets "Fuzzy" and 2 stuffed animals.
Books are a good diversion if DVDs won't work since you can hand him a new one every 10 seconds...Otherwise, putting star stickers on top of their stickers makes them feel more involved in the process and makes it go a little smoother.
We haven't tried this, but probably will with the next sleep study. Make a large (11 x 17) drawing of a body (gingerbread man style) and let him attach stickers to it everywhere they put stickers on him.

I hope this helps. Sleep studies are pretty simple compared to some other adventures you might embark on. If you have more questions, just ask!

Tiffany, mom to Isaac...2 years old...3 sleep studies...1 diagnosis...and 4 other quirks we can't figure out!

My son has had numerous procedures and trips to the hospital in his 4 years of life so it wasn't easy to get him in for the sleep study.  I spent 10 minutes in the hospital parking lot just trying to get his door unlocked so that I could get him out.  He was that afraid of being there.  Everything ended up going well though.  I had made sure to get him good and tired during the day with no naps (which meant 3 stops between home and the hospital), so by the time we checked in he was already getting groggy.  We'd played up the sleep study in the week prior to going in as him getting to be a "robot" at night and that seemed to help.  What little boy doesn't like robots??      In the end, I did have to hold him down some but it was over quickly and he did great at night.  

Don't count on anything being able to distract your child.  It may or may not work.  Bring a favorite blanket, animal and video just in case but plan on having to hold him/her down at some point.  It's pretty scary to have a stranger put wires, glue and tape all over your face and body.  My ds doesn't tolerate stickers and hates the sight of probes let alone having them placed on his body, so we weren't able to practice prior to the study.  However, I did show him pictures of other children who had the probes on so that he could see what it would look like.  I assured him that it wouldn't hurt (of course he didn't believe me), but I did my best.

The T&A made a big difference for my ds as well.  He had both removed at 22 months because they were so enlarged and were causing chronic tonsillitis and sinus infections.  That also helped to improve his sleep for about a year until he had another surgery to repair his velum.  Don't rule it out, or assume that your child will need it.  Get the study over with first and go from there.  One day at a time.  I hope everything goes well for you.  Good luck.

If you think it would help, you can go to our family's blog at www.theacuffs.com/blog. Look in the January archives and click "previous posts" until you reach January 4th. Click on that post and you will see a picture of our son with all of his electrodes attached. He was 21 months at the time and this is his third sleep study. If we don't get a monitor next month, we'll be going in for a fourth.

It isn't bad. Kids tend to do really well as long as you explain to them exactly what the plan is, what is expected of them, and then while it's happening, use the same words to talk about what the techs are doing. It also helps to sleep deprive them as much as possible, so they are really sleepy. That's proven the most difficult for us. He went down quick this time though. We usually steal about 2 hours of his nighttime sleep and then deprive him of all naps during the day. A trip to the zoo and making them walk is a great way to pull this off!