Rare Disorder Prevents Toddler Girl From Sleeping

Meet the toddler who doesn’t need sleep! A three-year-old girl has a rare condition which means she can survive on an hour of sleep a night. Exhausted parents Robin Audette and Kirk Hisko are lucky to get between four to six hours sleep a night, but their energetic daughter Ever can survive on as little as an hour and a half – and even been known to sleep at 20 minute intervals throughout a whole night.

The reason for Ever’s sporadic sleeping patterns? Angelman syndrome: a genetic and neurological disorder, which occurs in approximately 12-20,000 people. There are other symptoms besides the lack of need for sleep, such as development issues and delays in mobility, as well as lack of speech and difficulty when feeding. This list also includes symptoms like short attention span and constant unhappiness.

There might still be hope for Ever, as science and medicine are constantly searching for a cure for this syndrome. Robin and Kirk are optimistic that their baby girl will utter her first word with confidence and that the world will be kind on this human.

In contrast, a young mother from England has an equally rare and undiagnosed neurological disorder, which leaves her in a sleeping spell for days at a time. Jody’s episodes are so severe that she has no recollection of several Christmases and even slept through the birth of her first child.

Videographer / director: Kirk and Robin Hisko
Producer: Nathalie Bonney, Ruby Coote
Editor: Joshua Douglas