I had three children, 1970, l976 and 1980. The girl 1970 and boy 1980 both bit their tongues when sleeping it was hell for them and for my husband and I lasted from the time they got teeth until around 18 months old. The 1970 girl had a boy and he did the same. Now my 1980 boy has a boy and he is not biting his tongue but has difficulty sleeping. Its almost like he s frightened to go to sleep and I could understand if he was afraid of biting his tongue but he s not. I should have reasoned this out many years ago......all these babies do not want to cause themselves pain so this must be a secondary issue.......neurological???? Thankfully they do stop. The most recent baby twitches his fingers and feet or toes when falling asleep but wakes up in light sleep I believe and cries. This goes on for a length time..going to sleep and waking up repeatidly He will be put in bed with parents (he s one year) and he will do the same waking up but will settle down knowing I guess that he s where he wants to be. But he wakes up distrubed by something.....It s almost like he s frightened to go to bed at night...he knows the routine supper, bath, pajamas and bed. He almost desperate when putting on clothes because he knows its bed time. He twists around trying to get away from the dressing task. He clinches his fist when sleeping. Thankfully he wants a pacifer that calmss him greatly. He is bright and otherwise normal like my other offspring. I believe it s inherited. Alll of these children had a characteristic my husband put in the mix. He passed in 2003. He had a trembling chin and each child that is born with this trembling chin has had sleep problems ....three biting of tongue and now no biting but I think frightened to go to sleep ....very hard to get him to sleep....he fights it but of course sleep does take over and then he wakes up and cries and the cycle starts over. I think his mother takes about an hour to put him to bed and then they may or may not have more episodes during the night. She is a great gentle Mom soft spoken, rocks him asleep, breast feeds, reads to him, talks to him she is not the problem. When my first child the girl was going thru this my pediatrician didn t have any help for me. It was horrible I was working and it got so bad that blood would arch over Staci s crib side and into the room when she bit. I went to a couple dentists and found a pediatric dentist who put an acrylic molding over her bottom teen, molded it and took it off, and put some adhesive inside and then back on her bottom teeth to prevent her from cutting into tongue. This helped 80% she would still wake up at times but the worst was handled by the appliance So when Jeff 1986 had the trembling chin and started doing the same biting I went back to Dr. Wayland and what a solution. I m thinking hypnic jerk, benign nocturnal myoclonus from researching the internet but it s almost endless the information that links into the subject, estential tremor, tongue tremor, sleep terrors....I know the thing to do is to go to the pediatrician but my son and daughter-in-law don t think there is a problem because no tongue biting. They even started sleep training and ended up letting him cry it out. I was so low. I did give them the wrong information but it was the information I started with on the net. Trembling chin biting tongue. I printed the blog where there was no professional views just experiences so they think I m slow in the head. If there was the same pattern of the other children where you can actually see the issue blood on clothes, sheets, they would listen but she asked her peditrician if he was biting his tongue ....he used a tongue depressor and said no. So she believes him. This trembling chin is a rare hereditary condition/ disease??? it does nt progress it ends around 18 months and the children are very healthy athletic bright well built adults. Both kids are college educated and play ball even now when they are 43 and 35. What do you think. I was asked to leave their house when I attempted to bring subject up again because the baby is so hard to put to sleep......it s cyclical I believe he knows whats going to happen when asleep, he fights it and becomes more tired and the more fatigued he becomes the more acting out he does even though his mother is very soothing...the end result is that sleep takes over...I don t believe she is solving the problem by being patient and loving and kind....it s that he becomes exhausted and sleep happens. I would like to chat with the blog people who have experienced this with their children but have to find out how to...apparently you are not to use your real e-mail so it stops me. I m not babysitting as frequently as I use to and I am so feeling his circumstances! Any comments