8 month old baby with strange breathing behavior at night

[hbdub]

We are extremely concerned with an unusual breathing behavior that our 8 month old daughter often displays while sleeping.  To date no doctor has been able to give us a clear diagnosis.  The behavior is similar to the gasping a baby might do after intense crying, as is she was trying to catch her breath.  However, our baby will periodically exhibit this breathing while sleeping, with no apparent cause.  This breathing behavior usually wakes us up out of a sleep as it is so loud we can hear it over the monitor.  It does not appear to wake our daughter up, but she is observed to gasp, whimper and let out brief cries throughout the episode.  We have never witnessed any significant color changes, so we assume she is getting enough oxygen, but her breathing does appear to pause for approximately 4-5 seconds in between the quick breaths. Sometimes the breaths are so intense she starts to snort and it is very frightening to watch.  It rarely will stop on its own and usually my husband and I have to go to her and intervene.  Usually we start by rubbing her back or changing her position (both of which rarely work), but we eventually resort to picking her up to wake her.  Sometimes she wakes easily, but, often, our attempts to intervene agitate her and she starts to cry- sometimes hysterically. However, once she is fully awake, the breathing behavior stops and she is happy, quiet and back to our sweet little girl.  We usually get her back to sleep soon after the behavior stops and she tends to have a restful sleep the rest of the night.  We have videotaped the behavior and shown it to several doctors including her family doctor, 2 pediatric neurologists, an ENT, and we have had a sleep study (which came back completely normal).  Unfortunately, no one can tell us definitively what this behavior is, but several theories have been given including obstructive sleep apnea,  GERD, dreaming/night terrors/nightmares, seizure activity, or just a normal part of REM sleep.  However, none of these seem to fit the bill completely as 1) no physical obstruction has been found that would cause obstructive sleep apnea (e.g., enlarged adenoids or tonsils or some kind lesion) and apnea was not seen during the sleep study, 2) our daughter does exhibit mild reflux symptoms (i.e., occasional gagging, spitting up, choking) and we have tried prescription Prevacid, but this did not eliminate the behavior.  We actually took her off the medication thinking that perhaps the medication was causing the symptoms as one of it's rare side effect is abnormal dreaming (see #3)  3) for a while, we were thinking that maybe dreaming or night terrors were to blame secondary to the hysterical crying upon trying to wake her and the immediate restoration of happiness only after fully waking, but many doctors have said she is to young to have such dreams  4) an EEG has been done both on its own and during the sleep study which did not show any abnormalities that would suggest seizure activity and 5) all babies and adults go through REM sleep so, if it is simply a symptom of that, then why isn't this behavior more widely described?  Any information that can be given would be greatly appreciated as we have had so many sleepless night worrying about this and we are exhausted.  We and our doctors have seem to hit a brick wall as far as diagnosing this problem and we feel as though all we are left with is to "go home, manage it as best we can, and hope she grows out of it," but, as loving parents, that is very hard to do as all the "what ifs" come to our minds.  We feel that this website may be a ray of hope as last night I read 3 postings from parents that have experienced something similar with their children but no follow up was ever given.  I sent messages to these individuals to learn about their experiences; however, I'm not sure my efforts will be successful as these postings were written several years ago.  Does anyone have any other thoughts?  

[Mermie427]

No answers yet?  I just caught my sixth month old doing this. Freaked me out a little, I thought she was choking, from what I seen on the monitor.  We went in there, heard snorting and rapid breathing, figured she was having a bad dream, so I rubbed her back and it didn't stop. So I rolled her over and she started screaming hysterically. I picked her up and she continued to scream. I couldn't calm her. So my husband made her a bottle and she finally went back to sleep.  Very weird? I have an appointment on the 11th. I will ask Dr then.

[Leannejacob]

Any updates yet? My 18month old has just done this for the second time in around 2 months I left him to wake up from it himself. He has stopped now and seems to be breathing normally again!! Really freaks me out ! Gonna book in to see the doctor! But we have a long wait for appointments please someone update us

[Jstacysyn]

Any answers? Or negative/positive outcomes from this? My daughter started this. It scared me so much and took a lot to wake her... I'm hoping it was a bad dream and she was in a deep sleep.. however we have had a friend whose baby passed recently from SIDS and he was the same age of my daughter so I'm very anxious about night time as it is. Talking to doctor tomorrow.

[Shelleylaila]

All 3 of mine have done this, it freaked me out with my first, I thought she was having a seizure!! But now I've seen it happen with the second and third, as I'm writing this holding my son who has just done this a few moments ago, it's like a more intense version of what they do as new borns, when they open and close their eyes, smile over and over again really quickly, it's still scary to witness, hence why I'm back here googling and reassuring myself that it's normal, then remembering once again that yes it is lol. It sounds like he's sobbing, whimpering and rapid breathing, I rub his back and say shhhhhh, but the only real way to calm him is to wait until her wakes himself up, then cuddle him.

[EVaMonae]

My 13 month old has been doing this for the past month or so, maybe twice a week, He is in a very deep sleep and then his breathing changes almost like he is having a hard time (no discoloration) and then he whimpers I usually move him a bit but most of the time he wakes up screaming and there is nothing I can do to calm him. Eventually he settles down and falls back into a deep sleep, he never opens his eyes during these episodes..I have explained this to the doctors and no one seems to no whats going on. This is really stressing me out, I am currently pregnant and the lack of sleep is not helping. ANY UPDATES? ANY ANSWERS YET?

[EAWeaver]

My 7 mo old did this tonight. I was concerned so i paged a doctor. She said that its normal as long as she isn't sick (could cause  difficultly breathing), doesn't have any labored breathing and if there isn't any discoloration. That helped calm me.