5 Signs Your Child's Breathing Might Be Getting in the Way of Their Growth (And What to Do About It)

There's a question I hear from parents almost every week:

"My child is snoring, is this normal?"

Or: "Every time I look at her she has her mouth open and I've read that this shouldn't be happening. What can I do to help her?"

My personal favorite: "His teacher says he can't focus or sit still and I keep wondering if something else might be going on."

The truth is that those gut feelings you have as a parent are worth paying attention to. What your seeing with your kiddos breathing patterns, open mouth posture, overall sleep quality, and speech development are all connected. When something is off, or out of balance in one area, it will often show up in other areas too.

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As a speech-language pathologist specializing in tethered oral tissues and orofacial myofunctional therapy, I spend a lot of time helping families connect these dots. And I want to help you do the same.

If you caught my last post, you know this topic is close to my heart so today I really want to get more specific. Having awareness is the starting point, but knowing exactly what to look for in your own child is where things start to change.

So let's talk about five signs that your child's airway health might deserve a closer look and what you can actually do about it.

1. Mouth Breathing Is Their Default

If your child consistently breathes through their mouth while awake, during activity, and especially while sleeping, that's a clue. Nasal breathing isn't just a preference it's the norm. The nose filters, humidifies, and warms air before it reaches the lungs. It also produces nitric oxide, which supports oxygen absorption.

Chronic mouth breathing can affect jaw development, dental alignment, sleep quality, and even posture over time.

What to watch for: Lips apart at rest, dry lips, frequent "open mouth" photos, snoring or restless sleep.

2. Sleep That Doesn't Actually Feel Restful

You know that kid who sleeps up to 10 hours and still wakes up grumpy, exhausted, or is hard to rouse? This is a commonly missed signs of airway-related concerns in kids.

Poor sleep quality, whether from mouth breathing, enlarged tonsils/adenoids, or disrupted breathing patterns, can show up as behavioral challenges, difficulty focusing, hyperactivity, or even emotional dysregulation. Many of these children are labeled as having ADHD or behavioral problems before anyone looks at how they're breathing at night.

What to watch for: Tossing and turning, sleeping in odd positions (neck extended, head hanging off the pillow), night sweats, bedwetting past typical developmental age, dark circles, and difficulty waking.

3. A Tongue Tie Was Revised — But the Patterns Never Changed

If your child had a tongue tie release and things seemed fine for a while, but now you're noticing certain habits or even some regression, this ones for you.

A revision addresses the structure, but function has to be relearned. What I look for in these kids isn't the tie itself, it's what the tongue is doing (or not doing) every day. Where does it rest? How does it move during eating and swallowing? Is it doing its job during sleep?

Those everyday patterns are what tell the real story after a revision and they're often the piece that gets skipped.

What to watch for: Open-mouth chewing or messy eating past toddler years, food texture aversions, a tongue that visibly rests low or pushes forward against the teeth, speech sound errors that haven't resolved (especially /s/, /z/, /r/, /l/), and ongoing mouth breathing even after the release.

Tongue ties are one of the most searched and most misunderstood topics in pediatric health right now. If you want to go deeper on what to expect before, during, and after a frenectomy, I have a digital parent guide called Navigating Tongue Ties: A Practical Guide for Families Before, During, and After Tongue Tie Release — the link is below if you want to check it out.

4. Speech Delays or Sound Errors That Aren't Resolving

Not every speech delay is airway-related, but when I see a child with persistent articulation errors alongside some of the other signs we've discussed, it's my job to look at the whole picture, which means looking at the whole child.

The tongue, lips, and jaw have to work together precisely for clear speech. If the foundation (resting posture, oral muscle tone, breathing pattern) is off, speech therapy alone may plateau. This is why I take a comprehensive approach because treating the symptom, without the underlying function, will only get you so far.

What to watch for: Sound errors that don't improve with traditional speech therapy, lisping on /s/ or /z/, difficulty with /r/, and low intelligibility alongside other oral motor concerns.

5. You've Been Told "Wait and See" — But Something Still Feels Off

This one is for the parent whose already been to the pediatrician. Maybe you were told your child would outgrow it, or the sleep study came back "normal." That first evaluation said there was no delay but your instincts are saying something is just not right.

Mamas (and papas), I want you to understand that early intervention matters. The younger a child is when these patterns are addressed, the less downstream impact they have on their overall development. You don't have to wait until there's a "big enough" problem. You're allowed to ask questions and seek answers.

What Can You Do Right Now?

Start with information. The more you understand about how your child's airway, tongue function, and development connect, the better equipped you'll be to ask the right questions of your pediatrician, your dentist, your orthodontist, and yes, your speech-language pathologist.

That's exactly why I created The Root Cause Course:

What every parent needs to know about Tongue Ties, Oral Habits, & Airway Health

This short, parent-friendly course is designed to give you the clarity you've been looking for, without the overwhelm of wading through research papers or endless hours on Google.

Inside the course, you'll learn:

• What healthy airway development actually looks like at different ages and what's a red flag vs. a normal variation

• The truth about tongue ties what they are, what they're not, and what you actually need after a revision

• How to tell if your child needs speech therapy and what kind without guessing or wasting time on evaluations you don't need yet

• How breathing patterns affect sleep, behavior, and learning and what you can start doing at home today

• What to say to your child's doctor or dentist when you're concerned because knowing how to advocate in that 15-minute appointment changes everything

  
  

This course is for parents who want real, evidence-based information, explained in plain language, by a clinician who specializes in exactly this.

Special Offer for the First 50 Families

The first 50 families who enroll will receive access to an exclusive live Q&A session with me, a parent education meeting where you can ask questions, deepen your understanding of the course content, and get clarity on what next steps might look like for your family.

This is not a clinical evaluation or individualized treatment session, it's a dedicated space for you to learn, ask questions, and feel more confident navigating the system. And it's included free for early enrollees.

If you've had some of these questions and wondered if what you're seeing is a problem, or feeling like you're not being heard, I want you to know that you're in the right place.

Salt & Light exists because I believe every child deserves a whole-person approach to their development, and every parent deserves a clinician who will actually listen.

Let's figure this out together.

Looking for Your Next Step?

👉 Download my FREE Root Cause Parent Guide

If this article resonated with you, this guide is the perfect place to begin. It will help you start connecting the dots without spending countless hours sorting through conflicting information online.

Interested in Services at Salt & Light?

Our office is located in Vestavia Hills, Alabama and we provide in person services to clients in the surrounding counties and throughout the state of Alabama via tele-therapy. Please visit our "Home Page" and click on the "Get Started" button to fill out our questionnaire.

Amanda Mavrakos, M.S., CCC-SLP, is the owner of Salt & Light Speech-Language Resources in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, where she specializes in speech sound disorders, orofacial myofunctional therapy, tethered oral tissues, and airway-related concerns. She offers both in-person and teletherapy services.

Learn more at www.saltandlight-slp.com