Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center

The importance of sleep for children and adolescents is now well recognized. If your child is having a problem with sleep, early diagnosis and treatment can improve many important health and developmental issues, including behavior, memory, academic functioning, mood, and long-term health.

Our Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center is dedicated exclusively to the care of children and adolescents who have sleep problems. Nationally accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, our center is staffed by two experienced board-certified pediatric sleep specialists who offer expert consultation on a full range of sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, insomnia, narcolepsy, sleepwalking, and behavioral sleep problems.

Our Approach to Sleep Problems

Our specialists use state-of-the-art computerized sleep study equipment to aid in the diagnosis of your child’s sleep disorder. The pediatric sleep laboratory is comfortable, child-friendly, and staffed by seasoned sleep technicians who are expert at tabulating information about your child’s sleepcharacteristics. You will be able to stay with your child throughout the study.

Our team reviews the results of your child's study with the aim of designing a treatment plan to improve the quality of your child’s sleep. When necessary, we use a multidisciplinary approach to address your child’s condition, working with pediatric ENT physicians, obesity experts, bariatric surgeons, developmental specialists, craniofacial surgeons, neurosurgeons, neuromuscular physicians, and gastroenterologists.

We also have two nurse practitioner/educators on hand to help you and your child accommodate to CPAP/BPAP titration for complex sleep disorders. To help with other issues, we have a social worker on staff as well as access to behavioral therapists.

Conditions We Treat

• Obstructive sleep apnea
• Central sleep apnea or hypoventilation
• Insomnia (sleeplessness)
• Parasomnias
• Night terrors
• Sleepwalking (somnambulism)
• Excessive daytime sleepiness
• Sleep schedule abnormalities
• Restless legs syndrome
• Behavioral sleep problems

Our Services

• Sleep Consultation: A sleep specialist will first perform a comprehensive sleep history and physical examination. The parent can provide important supplemental information for the initial consultation by bringing a completed two-week sleep log and a sleep questionnaire to your first office visit.
• Sleep Laboratory: The Center has a comfortable child-friendly two-bed sleep laboratory, located in Sarah E. Nash Lung Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital that provides a full range of sleep studies. During a sleep study, your child is monitored for multiple brain and body activities, including brain waves (EEG), eye movements, limb movements, muscle activity, and heart rate. Other monitors measure breathing, chest and abdominal respiration, airflow at the nose and mouth, and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
• Polysomnogram: For certain problemssuch as sleep apnea or narcolepsy overnight sleep studies (polysomnograms) may be required as an aid to diagnosis. Parents are able to stay overnight with their child, while technicians monitor your child continuously while providing one-on-one physical and emotional support.
• Multiple sleep latency test (MSLT): This test is used to determine how sleepy your child is and aids in the diagnosis of narcolepsy. The MSLT consists of four to five naps at two-hour intervals during the daytime.
• Complex respiratory disorder evaluations: We are experts in CPAP titration for sleep apnea, ventilator titration to assess the respiration of children who depend on a ventilator, noninvasive ventilation titration to manage hypoventilation, tracheostomy evaluation to aid in tube removal, and oxygen titration to evaluate the oxygen needs of children with severe chronic lung disease.

Locations