A tired traveling two-year-old, exercise and weight loss, and a big-tonsilled tooth grinder

The Pediatric Insider

© 2015 Roy Benaroch, MD

I’ve been writing a follow-up course to my first video lecture series, and falling behind on blogging. Never fear! Once this baby is taped I’ll be back here, full time. Or nearly full time—I have a job, too, you know. For today, I’ll post a bunch of brief answers to questions that have been sent in lately. Keep the questions coming, I’ll get to them eventually!

 

“Graham is 2 ½, and every time we travel and he sleeps somewhere other than his crib, he goes crazy. Even if we do his same routine at home (and have even tried packing up his crib to bring with us!), he takes hours to go to sleep, and usually wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and nothing will calm him down. My husband usually ends up driving around with him in the car all night. I keep thinking he will outgrow it, but at almost 3, it is still happening. Any ideas of what we could do to help him sleep so we can still travel?”

Graham sounds like he likes his routines. And I’m not so sure you’ll be able to perfectly recreate his home setting and routine when you’re on the road.

Instead, it might help to start the process even before you travel. Have him start sleeping in his travel crib or pack n play a week or so before the trip, or mix things up in other ways—maybe move his crib to another part of the room, or even into a different room. Try to make it a fun adventure! Let him choose what “crazy place” to sleep at night. Maybe then the broken routine when you travel won’t seem as jarring.

 

“I’ve seen reported in the media recently that exercise doesn’t help with weight loss so there’s no point in even trying.”

 Whether or not exercise helps with weight loss, it’s still a good thing to do. People who exercise improve their cardiac and metabolic risks—think less diabetes and fewer heart attacks– whether or not they lose weight. Exercise helps sleep, prevents depression, decreases stress, and has turned me into the glistening man-hunk that I am (OK, I may have exaggerated that last point a bit.)

And: exercise can help you lose weight, too. You just have to not eat more when you do it.

 

“My 10 year son has been a super nighttime teeth grinder for as long as I can remember.  He also has very (naturally) large tonsils.  The dentist today said that the grinding is likely because his airway is partially obstructed when he sleeps and he’s trying to get air, and referred me to an ENT to have his tonsils removed.”

 There does seem to be an association between sleep-disordered breathing—loud snoring and pauses caused by upper airway obstruction—and teeth grinding (AKA “bruxism”). In a 2004 study from Brazil, about half of 69 children referred to an ENT group for adenotonsillectomy had bruxism; after surgery, the percentage dropped to 12%. If your child has large tonsils and sleep-disordered breathing, tonsillectomy may improve the teeth grinding. An ENT eval is a good idea.

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