Sleep Apnea Monitors

lkates921

Hi Ladies! My little ones have sleep apnea monitors. They'll be 2 months old on the 2nd and i was wondering if anyone else's little ones had them and how long they had them for? Thanks much!

keg

One DD was discharged from the NICU on an apnea monitor (born at 35w6d and in NICU for 6 nights) because they thought she'd had a couple episodes there.  We were able to ditch it after a month.  It was a combo of she hadn't had any more episodes, we were tired of it (lots of false alarms), and our ped wasn't a big fan of them.  However, we had a friend who really liked the monitor and kept her DS on it only at night for much longer (maybe 8 or 9 months)?  So, some of it probably depends on how you and your ped feel about them. 

thiswillbe

Our son came home from the NICU on one (he wasn't in the NICU originally-- he was sent to the NICU from home at 10 days old because he stopped breathing and we had to call 911). Our daughter was put on one several weeks later when she started having episodes where she stopped breathing. Both are still on them. DS is probably ready to come off his; DD is lagging a little behind, but should be ready soon, I think. We used to have them on 24/7, but now use them only when we're not directly watching them (nighttime, car rides) or other times where we want them for safety (long naps where we'd otherwise have to watch closely to verify they're breathing).

It seems like a huge hassle at first, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Best wishes!

AlishaMay

One of my DDs has reflux related apnea, where she stops breathing, and chokes often her refulx junk/spitup.  They told us there was a lot of false alarms on the apnea monitors, so they sent us home with a pulse oxymeter.  It alarms when her oxygen saturation falls below 85%, and we rarely have false alarms.

We're working on getting her reflux under control, so we'll keep her on it until we're comfortable with that.  We do only use it when she's sleeping in her crib, or in the car at night.

erinri02

Our boys both had them.  We got them at 9 weeks old and had them until 6 months old.  When they were about 4 months old, my pedi recommended I keep them off the monitor during the day so that I would not rely on them.  We only used them at night from that point on.