Why Child Snoring Isn’t Funny

First, let’s establish how the body is supposed to function while you're sleeping.

The body only wants to breathe through the nose and you're not in control. So it is working automatically. It's doing what it does on its own. And it prefers to breathe only through the nose while you're asleep. This is true for all age groups.

If your child is snoring, it is a concern and I'll tell you why.

The noise of snoring indicates that air is having trouble passing through the passages in your nose and throat.

Why would that happen?

It happens because the inside of the nose and throat loosen up and become narrower once a person falls asleep. Depending on their anatomy and the structure of the nose and throat which they inherit from their family, that space may be too narrow for air to easily pass through.

And secondly, which relates very much to a problem in children, is that their tonsils, which are these structures in the back of the throat, and adenoids, which are a similar structure in the back of the nose, are often enlarged in children. They are enlarged in children because children usually have a lot more infections with cold and congestion and allergies. Their bodies are also responding to all kinds of incoming particles and these guards that stand at the entry point of the nose and throat enlarge as part of their response.

This is a child's normal growing process. But when these tonsils and adenoids grow too big for providing any benefit, then the problem is that they prevents the normal flow of air through the nose and throat. If you're not getting enough air through the nose and throat while you're asleep your oxygen level drops, which wakes you up to take a breath.

If you're waking up enough during the night — and you don't know that you are — it causes a lot of problems. It causes problems with development and growth. And it can even cause mild problems relating to learning and attention issues in children.

So it is really important to identify if there is a problem with a child’s breathing during their sleep. And snoring being so common - in families and among people in general — it gets ignored and people just don't pay attention because they feel it is a normal part of sleeping. But it's not. This is why it's really important to identify the issue and talk to your doctor.

— Amer Khan, MD