My 11 year old son has ASD, he's never been good at settling at night but over the last few months it's got a lot worse. He suffers badly with anxiety and has several panic attacks while trying to go to sleep. It's taking on average almost 4 hours for him to go to sleep every night. I sit with him, comfort him, limit screen time before bed, I'm not sure what else I can try. I've read about the weighted blankets but have seen mixed reviews.
Any advice would be really appreciated.
Xx
There is an extraordinary resilience amongst the autists I know. I def came up with some theories when very young about survivng, but also i think my autism created a self sufficiency in me becausei struggled in so many ways, and that self sufficiency and stamina has endured. I somehow stay hopeful.
But I also see my self sufficiency makes me less available to people, and i can see with my mate that his ability to push through can also mean he pushes through when it'd be better to face up.
But yeah, well done on keeping going.
but it was not always like that, I added it to my programming when I was 14, I'm sure we all do some kind of psychoanalysis to ourselves, and it's direct result of that, but events leading to it are kind of grim story so I'm going to spare you that
It looks like I do not need that much sleep, unless I am physically tired enough I tend to sleep every other day, or if I try I spend 3 hours in bed staring at the ceiling and have to get up and eat something, because I'm hungry again and then I get angry I wasted 3 hours. It will probably progress the older I get, I heard elderly people sleep very little.
nothing was working for me. I pretended I intended to sleep, but the moment I heard everyone settled in their beds in their rooms I was moving desk lamp under duvet and reading books under duvet until birds started to sing outside, especially since I discovered public library when I was 9.
yes i picked that rule up from a sleep class I attended ( no phones, game machines, or blue lights in the bedroom ) and as just said sleep only
Sounds obvious, but make sure he's actually tired when you put him down. Is he sleeping a lot later in the morning than he might have previously?
Another thing I've seen suggested is, maintain the bedroom as a place for sleeping only, ie: no screens allowed.
Hello
When my daughter was young she would have a story tape/CD. She would listen to exactly the same one every single night, fall asleep and the tape/CD would run until the end. It took a while to find the right one. She had the most dreadful, banal short stories for a couple of years and then moved onto The Little Princess. Sometimes when we tried to move onto a new one she would immediately say no, it wasn't right. She needed the right type of story but in retrospect I think the right tone of voice. She was always OK about going to sleep alone if we got the environment right. This included her muslin comfort cloth, heavy duvet and blanket, window closed and night light. Aged 17 she still needs all these things in place but the necessity of a story tape/CD has stopped. She does like a long time to actually get to bed, about two hours including shower and hair washing. Before this ritual starts she also likes to watch something on the TV that she has seen a million times before, something reassuring and comforting. However when she got to about your son's age she suddenly started wanting me to sit with her until she actually fell asleep, having never needed this level of bedtime attention before. This could take a couple of hours. I couldn't bear sitting in semi-darkness listening to the dreadful story tape/CD and losing around 14 hours of my life every week but needs must. In the end I would sit behind her so that she couldn't see me and do work, study or shopping on my laptop. This went on for over a year and we were then able to move on. We also used aromatherapy oils in her bath and aromatherapy spray on her pillow when she got a little older but they didn't seem to aid her. I must add that I didn't know that my daughter was autistic at this point. She was only diagnosed when she was 17.
Now that she is much older she takes Nytol or Kalms herbal sleeping pills on the nights before college when she is most anxious.
Honey milk (warm milk with honey in it) helps her when things are really bad.
I am considering a weighted blanket for her as she does like heavy bedding even when it is hot.
Good luck. I really feel for you. Other parents would say that they just fell asleep with their child but I have never done that, not even when she was a baby and I was exhausted.
The book The Reason I Jump can be a bit of an insight into a child's AS mind.
Thanks for your reply. I will try the weighted blanket and the music see if it will help. My son masks a lot all day too so everything comes out at night, sometimes wish I could be him for a day just to understand what he goes through and how he must feel.
Weighted blankets are amazing. I didn't think they'd do much for me and they have been life changing.
Sometimes being under stimulated can cause distress. Have you tried music to fall asleep to? I suffer from being understimulated a lot, especially when I go to sleep. When I was little I needed to listen to slightly stimulating things like pop music or the radio, nothing too stimulating. Now it's reddit videos or ASMR. Maybe find something like that? Audio books that aren't that interesting or stories he's very familiar with.
I struggled with sleep a lot, still do. It's a time where even NTs think a lot. If it's gotten worse recently it could be from a change that has been distressing, even unconsciously. 11 is an age where the mind and body are changing anyway so this could be it. Worth looking into the cause. For me masking was so draining in the day that at night all my worries came out more.
Hope something I've said may be helpful. It's trial and error I'm afraid but you being there will be helping a lot. My mum always grounded me if I had an attack/meltdown at night.
