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Sleep!

Sparrow

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

  • 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.

  • sound -----

    play relaxing background music   - as he goes to sleep and as he sleeps 

    he has to feedback on what he thinks/feels is relaxing --- waterfall sounds, running river sound, white noise, pink, brown noise, music he likes . My favourite is the sound of the sea on a beach and rainfall  sounds.

    I get all my sounds from sound.com

    and 

    mynoise.net/.../rainNoiseGenerator.php