Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
Our baby who is 2 1/2 yrs been told to be having autistic behaviour. We have got to know about autism recently. After reading about it a lot we now realise that his sleeping issues probably are related to ASD.
For almost 1 year now he tend to wake up at least once or twise during the night and we put him back to sleep. This does not happen daily but he has a twin brother and we clearly see that there is lack of sleeping quality of him compared to his brother. Even last night he woke up twise.
All these days the obvious thing we thought was that he is hungry and to give him milk. Which usually works.
after reading about it now i also tend to see that 'milk' may probably be bad for children with ASD also.
Has anyone done any home remodies to make the situation better ? has it worked ? please help.
Hi SDM,
Glad that you feel welcome here. There are a range of views but there isn't a magic bullet that will resolve things. Diet seems to help some people, SOI finds it useful and I also have cut out certain things (apples, tomatoes mainly as I have found that I seem to have pollen fruit syndrome). The fedup site claims success and I think its diets are similar to the American Feingold diet. My opinion is that there is something in these diets but they don't help everyone and as far as I can see there isn't any solid science behind them although this may come in time. There are lots of dieticians who will happily charge you for all sorts of tests - some of them are genuine well meaning people but some are exploiting vulnerable people.
I guess you are sleeping in the same room out of necessity rather than choice but, needless to say, it would help if you could all sleep separately. You are likely to disturb him and he will disturb you and you may well react to him when he might have just gone back to sleep on his own.
Stopping using the TV as 'child minding' is definitely a good move. Kids with ASD need more help and practice with social interaction so this is a good move.
Dear recombinantsocks, Thank you so much for your post. Your questions mean i get to discuss this with someone else and trust me at this point this is all we need :)
Even last 2 nights he woke up one time each around 1:30am and after a while he went to sleep. We have also read about "night terrors" so we just calm him down and then he goes back to sleep. Ever since we figured about autism, we kind of thought that sleeping issues may probably be related to that also.
Yes he sleeps in a dark place, same bed room as ours but in another bed with his twin brother. Since most Doctors tend to let you know very little, these online resources seems to give much needed hope than only having settle to what the doctors say. Since simple dietary changes can not really harm him, i see no issue in trying them out. Many parents say that as soon as the changes were made, they saw improvements. We saw the same thing when we stopped the TV 100%. Within a week he transformed, his eye contact increased tremendausly plus he started to talk even though most he said was not meaningful.
While taking through all the therapies, i'm now considering biomedical options like what you have mentioned. Even yesterday i emailed one of my friends who is a Dr asking whether i should consult a "biomedical expert" or my general physician. I read in many places that things like vitamin b12 is very good for them. Obviously i would not want to try them without proper medical guidance.
On a more positive note, we are seeing daily improvements in him (we have not yet stopped milk). He (after 2 1/2 years) for the very first time kissed me day before and yesterday he repeated. A kiss and a smile. Means the world to me !!! This may be because his mother had to stay back at home and understandably he enjoys mothers company the most (I'm the father by the way). She is now trying to work out a deal with her office to work 1/2 day only for few months. Hope everything will work out well.
His sleep problems might, or might not, be related to his ASD.
He may, or may not, be intolerant of lactose. I don't think there is any proven link between the two. There is a lot of discussion about links between diet and ASD but there is little evidence pointing at any particular food. Try different foods and see if he improves without lactose/gluten/apples/tomatoes/ - there is a long list of foods that are poorly tolerated by different people. There is a website linked to an Australian hospital that promotes methods of identifying intolerance - http://fedup.com.au/ Be careful though as there are lots of people with extreme views in this field. Also don't let him end up on a restricted diet - he needs a range of vitamins, minerals, energy sources fibre etc etc - If in doubt then get help from your health visitor or GP.
Does his room have dark curtains? Some people with ASD are extra sensitive to light - I need plackout curtains to help me sleep.
Rewarding him with a bottle of anything may actually encourage him to wake and call for you. Try and develop a quiet and calm reaction to his waking. Check he is OK. Try and work out if anything is disturbing him and try and make bedtime a quiet time when he can be reassured but not encouraged in any way to get up.
Many ASD children are intolerant of cow's milk. I hated the stuff as a child, and would make merry hell when forced to drink it!
You could try replacing the cow's milk with sheep's or goat's milk, which is usually better tolerated. All milk contains lactose though, which is form of sugar, so not an ideal bedtime drink unless you can brush their teeth afterwards.
I would contact a nutritional therapist for advice, as changing his diet generally may improve his sleep bant.org.uk/.../practitionerSearch.faces