Help! My 3 year old son is sleeping upside-down! Literally!

[AerisandAlex]

I'm really concerned about my son, Alex... he's been sleeping... upside-down, LITERALLY I don't mean he's sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, I mean he's HANGING off the side of the bed, Head first!

I know that sounds weird, but being serious, I walked upstairs to check on the kids and he's hanging off his bed head first! I thought he was going to fall off, but he had secured himself enough that he wouldn't...

He did this earlier when I was trying to get him to lay down to go to sleep, he purposely put himself in this position... I moved him until he stopped doing it... but then yeah, come upstairs and he's BACK in that position, sound asleep...

I moved him again to the middle of his bed on his pillow, and he pushed himself BACK to the upside-down position... so I took his pillows and gave him a flat one to lay on.... I'm hoping that works, he stopped fighting me after I did that... but still concerned about him doing that...

I'm going to be calling his doc in the morning because sleeping upside-down.... just sounds very damaging... I mean, we're told not to be upside-down because it causes blood to pool in the brain, and that could be very damaging, and he's SLEEPING like this!

I've been trying to find info about it, and it's all saying terrible things Like he might have some kind of head trauma or he's got sleep apnea... which even sounds like it might be plausable as he's had his adenoids removed and tubes put it because his adenoids were 100% blocked and he had what the docs called 'glue ear' where the fluid behind his ear drums had become thick and sticky because it could never drain due to the adenoids blockage... and the doctors considered removing his tonsils because they told me on a scale of 1-4, they were a 3 in size... but they didn't go through with it because of his age and they said there was a very dangerous risk of him bleeding out because if he started to bleed, he would never be able to tell anyone because he wouldn't know what to say

And I guess his tonsils being so large can cause a lot of problems with his breathing, and he already has asthma...

I hope I'm just being overly paranoid...

 

[seoj]

Hopefully it's nothing serious out- ost likely just a quirky things he likes right now? I've no great advise- but for sure see his doctor to ask and get that reassurance for sure.

Maybe get a side rail or bumper guard for now till this passes if you haven't tried that? Something to keep him from getting into that position... have you asked him why? Just try to avoid google or internet about this hun-- that can be scary enough even if you google a rash! Too much info and most is not that accurate.

 

[AerisandAlex]

Well, even though he's 3, he has a very noticeable developmental delay in his speech... I mean, we just finally started to get him to answer simple questions, like 'What color is this?' without him just repeating the question.... It's due to him having the glue ear, the docs never noticed anything was wrong until he had turned 2... mainly due to, he never had any ear infections, tugging on the ears, nothing to suggest there was anything wrong with his hearing... he even responded when I'd call his name by turning around.... but he would never talk, I had to call in a Speech therapist to help and we were starting to teach him sign language so he had SOME way of communicating with us... then after he turned 2, his doc wanted to check his ears (FINALLY) and they found he could barely hear at all! And because of his Adenoids blocking everything he'd never smelled before either, poor thing He's had such a rough start in life... We're hoping he'll catch up before Kindergarten but we're not holding our breath, it's just been rough... so bottom line, asking him 'why' he's sleeping upside down isn't an option, he'd never understand what we were saying or how to answer such a question...

As for a bumper, his toddler bed comes with one, but he keeps ripping it off lol, anytime I reattach it, I find it outside his room in the morning... he can't stand it being there...

In any case, I did take him to his doc yesterday and they said the spitting up and the sleep position are probably being caused by severe acid reflux... that he's sleeping like he does because he most likely has heart burn and it's the only way he's able to sleep comfortably... so they've given him so medicine to help calm his stomach and we're going to see how that does and see if it makes difference... if after 2 weeks there's no change and he continues to have these issues we're going to look into something else... which I'm hoping the doctor is right, I mean, it all sounds extremely reasonable that the acid reflux is the cause of all his problems, makes sense to me anyway, so I'm thinking he'll be okay crossing my fingers!

 

[freckleonear]

How about putting his mattress onto the floor and using it as a floor bed?

 

[AerisandAlex]

Eh, well, we've tried that... whenever we do, he prefers to sleep on the floor itself lol