If your child has trouble sleeping, a PSG or Polysomnography might help you figure out why. 

As parents, we often ask ourselves if the sleeping patterns of our kids are normal, and sometimes it sure feels like they, or we are not sleeping enough. 

Your physician might ask you to try a sleep study, PSG, to get precise information about brain activity, heart rate, and sleeping. 

The study itself is not too complicated, but it involves a very specific preparation process involving the use of electrodes to be placed on different parts of your children’s body. 

The procedure itself is usually done during a night at the hospital, where health care personnel keep an eye on your child during sleep, to monitor breathing, movement, and brain activity.

Nurse Charlotte Kirkegaard at the Aarhus University Hospital has vast experience in this kind of study. “In our experience, both children and parents are often unprepared for what happens during a PSG”.  

This lack of preparation means that the study itself might turn into a difficult and stressful experience for both parents and health personnel. 

This video explains what happens during the study and can be useful when you need to explain to your child about it: 

Some hospitals will even allow your children to get involved in the study, giving them confidence and a chance to participate actively in the decisions taken, by allowing your child to choose which colors the cables on the electrodes will have. Here is a coloring page you can take with you to the hospital or use to involve your children: 

At the hospital in Aarhus, Denmark, nurses involve children further, giving them a diploma at the end of the sleep study. “We hope to make the study more playful and show the fact that the study itself is not dangerous or hurtful” adds Charlotte Kirkegaard.