So we have a DD, 3 years 4 months, that has had sleep problems basically forever. She does have ASD and we know that sleep issues can go hand in hand with that, however, something happened last night that has made me wonder if apnea might be the cause of her night wakings:
She woke up (as usual), and came downstairs to our bed. Fell back asleep. I woke up a while later, not sure why and looked over at her. Not sure what made me look, but I could not see her chest/belly moving at all (she was flat on her back). Figured it was from her thick jammies. Put my hand on her belly, I could feel nothing, no movement at all. Took my hand off tried again... and again... nothing. Started calling her name, put my finger under her nose to see if I could feel her breathing, nothing. Shouted my husband's name to wake him up, put my hand on her chest, nothing. I gave her a little shake, and she kind of startled, took a deep sigh, and rolled over, breathing, though shallowly.
I'm not sure how long the whole thing lasted. 10 seconds maybe? More? I don't know. I'm fairly certain she wasn't breathing as I checked several times. I've never seen this happen before. I mean, sometimes when she sleeps she'll hold her breath for a few seconds (2-3 seconds), and sometimes her heart will beat erratically, skip a beat, but nothing ever like this. She isn't a great sleeper as I mentioned. She wakes up every night. Sometimes once, sometimes three times. You never know. And when she does sleep she's often very restless.
Is there any chance she has apnea, or is it more likely it was just a fluke? We've just always chalked up the sleeping issues to her ASD, but again, I've never seen her stop breathing before like last night. She does snore sometimes, but not always.