When my daughter was 15 months old, I took her off the bottle. She usually would drink six to eight 9-ounce bottles a night. That night, she did not drink anything, because she didn’t want her sippy cup. She went to sleep at 10:00 p.m. At 1:00 the next afternoon she still wasn’t awake. I tried to wake her up. She would look at me and then go right back to sleep. I tried giving her a bath to wake her up and she fell asleep in the tub in less then a minute. I finally got to thinking that she hadn’t had anything to drink, so I got her to eat some Skittles. About five minutes later, she woke right up. Within about 15 minutes, she started playing. Could her blood sugar have been low enough to cause this? After that episode, I started checking her sugar. I have seen it as low as 47 mg/dl [2.6 mmol/L] and as high as 283 mg/dl [15.7 mmol/L].

First, Skittles is never something one should give to a 15-month-old baby. If your baby is ever hypoglycemic and able to drink with some coaxing so that there is no risk of choking, then orange juice or other sugary liquid would be fine. There are also sugar gels (i.e., Glutose) or cake icing that can be squirted into the corner of the mouth and minimize the danger of choking. Emergency glucagon injections might also be advisable but not without a definite diagnosis first.

The blood glucose levels you describe are definitely abnormally low and abnormally high so that there is something not working well with her pancreas/insulin. I would suggest that you discuss with your pediatrician or primary care provider and arrange for consultation with a pediatric endocrinologist who can make a diagnosis and provide some guidance about monitoring, foods/meal planning and timing and diagnosis. This could be a pre-diabetes condition but some other diagnosis is possible.

SB

[Editor’s comment: If I am reading your question correctly, you said your daughter was drinking “six to eight” 9-ounce bottles a night. Doing the math, that’s 54 to 72 ounces a night. To me, that is quite a bit and is worth discussing with your pediatrician. You may wish to look at our web page on the Symptoms of Diabetes.

BH]