Zach and Tori Roloff have discovered the reason behind their 4-year-old daughter Lilah’s sleep issues.
The couple revealed on the Tuesday, March 26, episode of Little People, Big World that Lilah was diagnosed with a “moderate form of sleep apnea” after undergoing a sleep study. “She’s probably going to need her tonsils taken out, and then, supposedly after that, the apnea goes away,” Zach, 33, shared in a confessional.
According to the Mayo Clinic, sleep apnea is a “potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts” throughout the night and is common in people who snore loudly and remain tired after a full night’s sleep.
Earlier in the episode, Zach explained that the sleep study would also help make sure Lilah is “safe” when put under anesthesia. “[People with dwarfism,] our airways are built slightly different than other people, and there is maybe a higher threat of something going wrong,” he explained in a confessional.
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Tori added that sleep studies are recommended to people with dwarfism “to make sure that there’s [no] obstructive sleep apnea.”
Admitting that he was “nervous” about how Lilah’s sleep study would go, Zach tried to prepare Lilah so she wouldn’t be scared. “I keep telling her that they’ll put stickers all over her head and, you know, you’re gonna have a nurse there and things like that, so I hope she has a good idea, but who knows with her,” he said in a confessional. “She gets it in her head and then she gets scared, and then she has a hard time recovering.”
The couple, who wed in 2015, also share sons Jackson, 6, and Josiah, 22 months.
News of Lilah’s sleep apnea diagnosis comes one year after Zach underwent an emergency brain surgery. “Not exactly how we saw our week going …” Tori, 31, captioned February 2023 Instagram photos of Zach lying in a hospital bed, revealing that he had an “emergency shunt revision.”
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“It’s been a scary 72 hours but he is doing well and recovering!!” she continued. “Thank you so much to everyone for the prayers that you have covered us in. We feel them! … You’re a freaking bad ass, Zach. You just had brain surgery … and handled it like a rockstar. I’m so proud of you.”
Last month, Zach and Tori opened up about his “near-death experience” on their “Raising Heights” podcast. Zach, who has had a shunt in his brain since he was a kid, explained that he went to the hospital after experiencing several severe headaches.
“I really feel like with spinal stuff, fluids, shunts and of those issues, the brain, headache, the idea of a migraine… it’s hard to pinpoint sometimes,” he shared. “We’re [coming] up on a year on that and I haven’t had a migraine since then.”
Tori, meanwhile, recalled the scariness of Zach’s health scare, stating, “I was just preparing myself for the worst because I had no idea what was going on.”
The duo also confirmed last month that they would not return to Little People, Big World following the show’s current 25th season. “We are not coming back to Little People, Big World. Like, we are done,” Tori announced on the February 22 episode of their podcast. “That chapter has closed.”
