One of the (many) reasons that sleep training culture breaks my heart is that it means that medical conditions often go unnoticed and unaddressed. Within sleep training culture, waking at night is considered a behavioural issue and the actual cause of the waking is rarely considered.
Of course, an awful lot of wakefulness in babies is completely normal and our job as parents is to find ways to make babies as comfortable as possible and make dealing with night wakes sustainable for ourselves. But sometimes, there’s an underlying issue that is causing babies to have difficulty dropping back to sleep when they rouse from a sleep cycle.
Mouth breathing and snoring in babies can be major red flags for airway issues or allergies which can have a big impact on sleep. Overlarge adenoids or tonsils blocking airflow and causing sleep apnoea; deviated septum; respiratory allergies… If you notice your baby breathing through their mouth regularly day or night, snoring while they sleep, or holding their breath/gasping in their sleep, please please mention this to your GP and seek a referral to the ENT service to get it investigated.
You may well find this has an impact on your baby's sleep... Without touching their sleep at all. The best kind of intervention!