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Not coping

NAS38814
over 6 years ago

Hello everyone. 

My daughter has been diagnosed with ASD, she's four. 

For some reason i thought the older she got it would get easier to cope. But its really not. Everyday is a struggle....

She is very demanding, screams non stop, and doesn't fall to sleep before 2am. Im hoping its the school holidays  and when she's back in school her behaviour will settle down.

Her father and me also don't see eye to eye on how to deal with her. We have a "good cop, bad cop" situation going on. I understand that a lot of her behaviours are because she has autism  but her dad just sees it as her being naughty and constantly tells her off. And it breaks my heart. 

Every bedtime is a battle to get her to chill and try to get some sleep. We both work full time, so we need our sleep. Its really starting to affect our relationship and im just in a mess constantly. I have no social life because im just so tired all the time, i just feel like running away. 

Doing 8 hours shifts on 4 hours sleep is getting hard. 

I love my daughter with all my heart Hearts

Parents
  • over 6 years ago

    "her dad just sees it as her being naughty and constantly tells her off."
    "her dad will just shout at her and call her naughty"
    That's both sad and such an obvious non-starter. Autistic people and confrontation/loud noises don't mix well. Disappointed Completely the wrong approach and it's likely making it worse.

    I struggled a lot with sleep when I was small; firstly I've always been a bit of a night-owl and wouldn't get tired before way past my bedtime, secondly I had horrible recurring nightmares (from a very early age; I started mentioning them when I started talking) that made me afraid to go to sleep when I was tired.
    I was having occasional hypnopompic hallucinations (where your brain remains in 'dream mode' for a few minutes after you wake up and forms false images overlaid on the real world) from age 6-ish to boot, which made bedtime even more unnerving.
    I get the impression that sleep problems are not uncommon for autistic kids.

    It took my parents a good hour every evening (usually sitting and reading to me) to get me to actually sleep. Also I went through a long phase of having to have my dimmer-switch bedroom light on on its lowest setting all night. And often I would end up in their bed anyway because I'd had a nightmare and was inconsolable. This all persisted for years, I think until I was 8-9.


    I still can't sleep without some form of white noise (those 10 hour rain-sounds videos on youtube are a godsend) or audiobook. Do you think either of these would be worth a try? 

    And your husband needs to
    A. Go and do a bit more research re. autism, because it sounds like he doesn't understand if he's just defaulting to 'naughty'.
    B. Learn to remain a bit calmer around his daughter, because the current situation is not good for her.

Reply
  • over 6 years ago

    "her dad just sees it as her being naughty and constantly tells her off."
    "her dad will just shout at her and call her naughty"
    That's both sad and such an obvious non-starter. Autistic people and confrontation/loud noises don't mix well. Disappointed Completely the wrong approach and it's likely making it worse.

    I struggled a lot with sleep when I was small; firstly I've always been a bit of a night-owl and wouldn't get tired before way past my bedtime, secondly I had horrible recurring nightmares (from a very early age; I started mentioning them when I started talking) that made me afraid to go to sleep when I was tired.
    I was having occasional hypnopompic hallucinations (where your brain remains in 'dream mode' for a few minutes after you wake up and forms false images overlaid on the real world) from age 6-ish to boot, which made bedtime even more unnerving.
    I get the impression that sleep problems are not uncommon for autistic kids.

    It took my parents a good hour every evening (usually sitting and reading to me) to get me to actually sleep. Also I went through a long phase of having to have my dimmer-switch bedroom light on on its lowest setting all night. And often I would end up in their bed anyway because I'd had a nightmare and was inconsolable. This all persisted for years, I think until I was 8-9.


    I still can't sleep without some form of white noise (those 10 hour rain-sounds videos on youtube are a godsend) or audiobook. Do you think either of these would be worth a try? 

    And your husband needs to
    A. Go and do a bit more research re. autism, because it sounds like he doesn't understand if he's just defaulting to 'naughty'.
    B. Learn to remain a bit calmer around his daughter, because the current situation is not good for her.

Children
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