Safe sleepovers for children with diabetes

Pediatrician Jamie Wood, MD Clinical Diabestes, shares advice for parents who have a child with diabetes on how to plan to keep your child safe when sleeping over at a friend's house
Safe Sleepovers For Children With Diabetes
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Safe sleepovers for children with diabetes

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The topic of sleepovers and camps is a very important topic for the children. One of their worries at first is that they are not going to be able to experience the very important social event of the sleepover. We talk a lot about it and we plan for it. Parents of a child with diabetes because they may not be there. They worry that something might happen. Someone may not recognize a low blood sugar. What we do is we plan. The first thing that we do is we have the parent host a sleepover at their house to see how their child's diabetes responds to sleepovers. Some children need lower doses of their background insulin because they don't tend to be sleeping, so they need less insulin, or they may be excited and their blood sugar will run a little high, depending on if they are snacking. Do a trial run at your house, so that you know how your child responds to it. Once we do that a couple of times, we graduate into a modified sleepover. With time, a family who is raising a child with diabetes will find another family who is comfortable having a child with diabetes sleep over.

Pediatrician Jamie Wood, MD Clinical Diabestes, shares advice for parents who have a child with diabetes on how to plan to keep your child safe when sleeping over at a friend's house

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Jamie R. Wood, MD

Pediatrician, Clinical Diabetes, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Dr. Jamie Wood was born and raised in Vermont, where she also attended medical school. She completed her pediatric residency at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, and her endocrine fellowship at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard University. She moved to the Los Angeles area in 2008 and is now the Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Wood’s specialty is the care of youth with type 1 and type 2 diabetes—a field she fell in love with during a medical student rotation at a summer camp for youth with diabetes.  She also enjoys gardening, cooking, hiking, and playing with her husband and two children, Jackson and Olivia.

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Transcription: 
The topic of sleepovers and camps is a very important topic for the children. One of their worries at first is that they are not going to be able to experience the very important social event of the sleepover. We talk a lot about it and we plan for it. Parents of a child with diabetes because they may not be there. They worry that something might happen. Someone may not recognize a low blood sugar. What we do is we plan. The first thing that we do is we have the parent host a sleepover at their house to see how their child's diabetes responds to sleepovers. Some children need lower doses of their background insulin because they don't tend to be sleeping, so they need less insulin, or they may be excited and their blood sugar will run a little high, depending on if they are snacking. Do a trial run at your house, so that you know how your child responds to it. Once we do that a couple of times, we graduate into a modified sleepover. With time, a family who is raising a child with diabetes will find another family who is comfortable having a child with diabetes sleep over.