Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi my name is Antonella, I am a product design student currently in year 13 doing my A levels.
I am currently working on a design project to help support families with children on the ASD spectrum specifically relating to their night time routines, such as being able to settle down to sleep independently and thereby the whole family can benefit from a product that can improve this routine. This is a project that is very personal to me and my home life as I have a younger sibling who has long been diagnosed with autism. I would really appreciate it if you could take the time out of your day to answer a few of my questions so that I can gather as much information to inform my decision on what I may want to develop throughout my project.
I would really appreciate if you could comment on what helps your child sleep or what problems you think your child tackles that causes them to not sleep.
Any feedback; support and help would be greatly appreciated.
My 7 year old daughter (currently going through assessments so not diagnosed) never slept as a baby it was so bad I used to hallucinate through lack of sleep and they wanted to send her to a sleep clinic. The only way she slept was if we co-slept. She needed that physical presence near her, once she got a bit older (2.5) we put her in her own room, I had to stay in there while she fell asleep which could take hours and I had to have my hand on her.
She started to be able to go to sleep without me there when she was about 6, however it takes her sometimes up to 2hrs to get to sleep. She has a strict routine of story, brush teeth, into bed, cuddle and kiss and I have to say a very specific little rhyme which she responds to with her own return rhyme answer. She also has 48 (yes she’s counted!) teddies on her bed, she piles these over herself I think she likes the weight of them.
Night time is when her stress and worries about the day are likely to come out, she keeps a diary under her pillow which she writes in although she’s not really grasped that she should write her feelings it’s more a note of what she’s done during the day, sometimes with a happy or sad face. She also has worry dolls but they are largely unused as I think the idea behind them is too abstract for her. What’s most likely to happen is that she will lie in bed crying until I find her, I then have to calm her down (usually squeezing her feet helps) and the bedtime rhyme has to be said again and the teddies repositioned.