Sleep disorders common in people with ASD?

Just thought I'd throw this out here.

After a night of no sleep (realistically I must have had about; 30 to 40 minutes of sleep); I did some rather quick reading on the subject today, & I'm curious to know if anyone else has any sort of sleeping problems? From what I can tell it seems to be quite common in people with ASD?

I've struggled with sleep since childhood. At first I believed it to be due to the abusive/ disruptive surroundings (& I'd listen to music to drown it out & help me sleep. Sometimes I will still do this, but other times even that doesn't really help), but even after I left that predicament & moved into calmer settings, the sleep problems persisted, & have done so even to this day.

I've had everyone; through the years, giving me their 'suggestions' on where they believe I'm going wrong. Even had a few cheeky sods suggest it's because I wasn't active enough during the day, so I wasn't 'tiring myself out' enough. As you can imagine; I managed to prove that theory wrong on numerous occassions haha.

A few occassions in the past it has gotten bad enough for me to consider going to the doctor, but he's a bit bloody useless to be honest (& I'm actually on the look out to get myself & my family moved to another GP surgery).

All in all it tends to be manageable, believe it or not.

I think one problem I have is that I will stay in bed, 'trying' to sleep, when I clearly will not drop off no matter what measures I take. Every now & then I can tell when I'm going to have a small bout of insomnia & just wont sleep 'enough', last night was an extreme case as it's been a long time since I was awake all night.

I was talking to a friend about this, & even she suggested something I was considering, which is to just get out of bed & do something productive with my time. I'm a freelance artist, so those hours would be great to make up on lost time. I didn't sleep a wink last night, & I don't feel tired at all. I'd planned on maybe having a nap during the day, but I really don't need it. 

I think most of the stress stems from me also being a stay at home mum & thinking that me not getting enough sleep will result in me being too tired to contend with my children. I'm tempted to just get out of bed the next few times this happens; do something productive & seeing what the results are.
My own little 'experiment' I suppose. 

Sometimes it's pretty obvious that I can't sleep due to overthinking/stress, but other times, I'm just not tired at all & there really doesn't seem to be any obvious cause.

Does anyone else have anything like this?

Parents
  • ADHD has a huge issue of sleep disorders. My SD20 will be asking the psychiatrist for help. My SO is stubbornly resisting a trial of melatonin.

    SD16 has ASD and sleeps the best of us all when she's here and got her own spaces. She comes to us tired because she co-sleeps with her mother (grrrr!)

Reply
  • ADHD has a huge issue of sleep disorders. My SD20 will be asking the psychiatrist for help. My SO is stubbornly resisting a trial of melatonin.

    SD16 has ASD and sleeps the best of us all when she's here and got her own spaces. She comes to us tired because she co-sleeps with her mother (grrrr!)

Children
  • QuirkyFriend said:
    My SO is stubbornly resisting a trial of melatonin

    Well he would, wouldn't he. Stubborn resistance is what we do!

    Perhaps he could be persuaded if he actually had a melatonin test to see if he had a measurable deficiency. Scientific evidence might be more persuasive than persuasion.

  • Well I do have undiagosed ADHD & OCD, so that's obviously part of it. When I went for my ASD assessment the psychiatrist did mention ADHD & try to push me to get checked, but I just scoffed at the idea & didn't think I had it, & I was concentrating so much on the ASD.
    Later I did further reading on the different 'types' of ADHD, & it left me thinking 'oooooh.... crap. Yeah maybe I should have been checked for that too'. Sod's law eh? I'm just a mess of walking acronyms Haha.