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new to site

bubbles2bb

Hi

My name is Jo, I have just joined this site, I am a mother to an almost 5 year old boy with learning difficulties and autism (diangosed july 2013), he is non verbal, with very limited receptive language, in nappies, unable to self feed etc etc. However, our main concern is his sleeping - this has been a problem for over two years, but just gets worse, it is hell, so i have joined the group to try and find other people in similar situations or to see if there was any advice out there.....

We have a new paediatrian, although her answer to everything is to keep increasing his medication, which doesnt appear to do anything, but more importantly i just dont want to keep increasing medicine, i just wondered if anyone else had tried anything else?

He currently has 2-4mg circadin in a yoghurt each night along with 3-4 mls melatonin, this used to get him to sleep and keep him asleep until 1-2am when he would be up until 4.30 am then go back off until 6.30am, we were told to re dose him if he wakes before 2am, but have given this up as it doesnt make any difference, once he is awake that is it!

He currrently goes to sleep at 19.30pm and wakes around 22 - 23 and can be up all night and go all day, i cant settle him at all in his room and if i bring him in my bed its hit or miss if he goes back to sleep, if he does, he wakes several times, i am exhausted, i work full time and so does his dad, so we take it in turns to provide cares.

I was just wondering what everyone else out there does to tackle the sleeping? Has anyone tried sleep studies?

thanks

Parents

  • I'm a bit confused, Circadin is melatonin, so it sounds as if he is having 2 separate doses of it?  That's overall quite a high dose of melatonin for a child.  Melatonin is not a drug, it's something the body makes naturally but in autism either it doesn't make enough or the body doesn't process it the right way.  There would a limit on how much melatonin he could have.

    I would put his sleep time to half an hour to an hour later than it currently is, he may be one of those children who need less sleep.  Have you checked that there is no noise waking him up?  Autistic children can have incredibly sensitive hearing and the smallest noise can awaken them (even something like a creaking stair) and have you ensured he's not had any big drinks close to bedtime as needing the toilet could be waking him?  Even though he's in nappies the sensation could be disturbing him if he has tactile sensitivity.

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  • I'm a bit confused, Circadin is melatonin, so it sounds as if he is having 2 separate doses of it?  That's overall quite a high dose of melatonin for a child.  Melatonin is not a drug, it's something the body makes naturally but in autism either it doesn't make enough or the body doesn't process it the right way.  There would a limit on how much melatonin he could have.

    I would put his sleep time to half an hour to an hour later than it currently is, he may be one of those children who need less sleep.  Have you checked that there is no noise waking him up?  Autistic children can have incredibly sensitive hearing and the smallest noise can awaken them (even something like a creaking stair) and have you ensured he's not had any big drinks close to bedtime as needing the toilet could be waking him?  Even though he's in nappies the sensation could be disturbing him if he has tactile sensitivity.

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