Sleep Disorders

Many children with LKS are particularly active in the evenings and parents report that they cannot settle to sleep until late. In other cases they go off to sleep readily in the evening but then have prolonged episodes of wakefulness during the night, or wake in the early hours and cannot go back to sleep. LKS is particularly associated with seizure activity during sleep so it is perhaps not surprising that so many children have problems at night. Indeed, many parents report that their child is woken by the seizures themselves during the night. Also some drugs (for example, lamotrigine) may disturb sleep. Children who have difficulty getting off to sleep may be helped by melatonin (it is also used to treat jet-lag in the adult population). It is harder to treat night time waking. It may not be possible to ‘cure’ the underlying medical reason for these sleep difficulties, but the situation can usually be improved by consistent application of standard behavioural management strategies. These may include:

a regular, quiet bed-time routine (bath, warm drink, being read a story or shown a picture book)
removing TVs and videos from the child’s bedroom
sleeping in their own bed in their own room (with a babymonitor if you are concerned that you will not hear them when asleep)
comfort and reassure when your child wakes at night but don’t overdo it (that is, resist switching on all the lights/ giving food / turning on a video/ staying with them until they fall asleep).