Why Does My Child Always Seem to Get Sick at Night?

Dr. Greene’s Answer:

You may feel like this only happens to your child, but you are not alone! This happens to everyone, no matter what the age. There are three primary reasons for this. First, the pressures in our bodies change when we are horizontal. Lying down increases congestion, ear pain, postnasal drip, sore throats, and several types of cough.

Additionally, our bodies are on a 24 hour clock called the Circadian Rhythm. Hormone levels rise and fall according to this daily cycle. Some hormones help us to wake up in the morning, others help us to sleep at night. These same hormones affect how we feel pain. During the day high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, keep us from feeling some of the pain and keep our fevers in check. At night our fevers rise and our discomfort increases. As if this weren’t enough, throughout the day our senses are barraged by gigabytes of stimuli every second, and our brains are busy processing all the data. At night the amount of stimuli we are bombarded with is drastically reduced. This gives our brains an opportunity to pay more attention to this already increased level of pain. These factors combine to greatly amplify symptoms at night. Feeling better in the morning doesn’t mean that you are better.

Obviously there are times that your child is so sick at night that you will need to call your pediatrician for immediate care. If your son is sick at night, but not sick enough to require urgent medical care, it is still appropriate to take him to the pediatrician in the morning, even if your child appears better. A good rule of thumb is, if you wouldn’t want your son (or yourself) to have another night like the last one, then it is time to consult your pediatrician.

Dr. Greene is a practicing physician, author, national and international TEDx speaker, and global health advocate. He is a graduate of Princeton University and University of California San Francisco.

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  1. Nibedita

    My daughter 5 years old,she is perfectly active all over the day and feels OK. But at the sleeping time she says she is feeling vomiting and some stomachache…but soon she sleeps and never actually vomit…Next day she becomes again overactive.

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  2. Michelle

    My daughter is 10 she is fine of a day but lately Every night she says she feels sick, she never goes sick she just feels weird in her tummy.

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  3. Markquin

    why does my sons having a diarrehia and vomits at the same time during nigth tme only?

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    • Dear Markquin,

      How old is your son? How long has this been going on? Is it every night or just some nights?

      Best, @MsGreene
      Note: I am the co-founder of DrGreene.com, but I am not Dr. Greene and I am not a doctor. Please keep that in mind when reading my comments and replies.

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  4. Candace

    My son has been plagued by a number of “flu viruses” since the start of 2019. He has now had this flu 4 times. The first time he got it, he was vomiting uncontrollably then, once he got better he had developed pale clay-like stool. The pediatrician said it was because of his vomiting put stress on his liver and he wasn’t getting the appropriate proteins or he wasn’t getting enough bile to digest his food because of the excess vomit. Now, sick get again and he is fine during the day. Will have a large puke at night of everything he consumed in the evening, then fall asleep like normal but has crazy gas and bloating because of it. My family suffers from celiacs decease but I haven’t been diagnosed. Could my son be having extreme cases of gluten attacks? Seeing as he wasn’t introduced to full solids until 2019? Nobody seems to have an answer for me.

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    • Lenni Doyel

      Have you tried an elimination diet? If you think it might be a gluten problem, just remove all gluten for a while and check the results. It’s the quickest way to figure this out, but you have to take out ALL gluten or the test doesn’t work.

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    • Konstance

      I been having issues with my13 year old for about a year throwing up she lost weight and she looked frail dark eyes took he to Akron she was there a month they placed feeding tube 1 month later we take her back to make a long story short they sent her home and told me we may never know what’s wrong that was super strange to tell a parent but 3 days at home she throwing up blood had to call ambulance 🚑 and demanded Cleveland she is currently in the hospital and they think they found a solution GERD she started off like your son but it gradually got to this point I hope that helps please let others know because a lot of adults having these issues and being told it’s all in there head

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  5. DereKKK

    Very well written and very informative.

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