Bedtime

I've found over the years that not getting over-tired, and keeping a fairly regular bed time, helped keep the frequency of episodes down, and it has also decreased over the decades (it is rare now). However, that wouldn't have done anything to take away the fear of it happening that was quite pervasive when I was a child (in my mind then, the episodes were easily connected with what you might call routine or standard nightmares or at least connected with the fear of them). Fear is a strong component of them because of the way they activate the brain if I remember correctly what I've read since.

When I was a child I used to get some comfort from having my bed against a wall so that I could lie on my side and feel pressure on my back (& know that nothing malicious could come from that direction in the night!) and I also had various stuffed toys in my bed that I could hide my face under. Fairly dim night lights too so that I could see into otherwise dark corners if I woke and thought that something might be lurking there.

Also I remember that anything that disturbed my sleep (like a big mirror falling off the wall in the lounge when I was 18 or so!) or other noises etc in the night seemed to be able to "trigger" an episode.

Once the episode had happened, I needed comfort from my parents and when I became too old for this I would have to resolve not to go back to sleep because I knew it would happen again, so I would put my light on and try to stay awake (it didn't always work and, yes, they happened again!).

That’s interesting, I never thought it could be sleep paralysis! My partner has suffered from that when he was younger so it’s possible that’s what it could be. Did you find anything that helped? 

On the off-chance that this helps, I remember being afraid at night time when I was around that age. I used to have some recurring & scary dreams, and also suffered from sleep paralysis (which is terrifying if you don't know what it is, and very frightening even if you do know what it is). I didn't know that sleep paralysis had a name and was experienced by anyone else until I was about 15. I've read that it is more common in ASD than generally, so wonder if your son might be experiencing that? 

Hello,

I am having a similar issue with our son just now, he is 7. He gets up every night and comes through to sleep in our bed, he says he has nightmares every single night and now he’s terrified when it comes to bedtime. As soon as i mention that it’s his bedtime he gets really upset and has a meltdown. I’ve no idea if it’s genuine nightmares he’s having or he is just using excuses to not go to bed but it doesn’t seem that way. I’m really not sure how to help him :( 

Are there any signs that he's not sleeping well even on his better nights? For example, getting drowsy during the daytime, or being extremely slow to get going after he wakes up.

The reason I ask is that it is quite common for autistic people to have difficulty with their sleeping. Sometimes (as with myself), this can be because our body-clock gets out of sync with everyone else's day, so that our body and mind really just aren't ready to sleep at the usual times. Going as far back as your son's age, I would have many nights when I'd end up just lying awake for hours after bedtime, unable to get to sleep. This used to make me very anxious; partly out of frustration that I couldn't get to sleep, and partly because that's an awful long time to spend alone with only your own thoughts for company, which even as an adult, I can still find a bit unnerving. I got pretty good at pretending to be asleep and being very, very quiet so that I wouldn't disturb anyone else in the house, but there would be nights now and then when it would all get too much and I'd melt-down.

Making excuses as a form of demand avoidance is certainly a likely explanation; but if there are any signs that he's struggling to get enough sleep, it is possible that he is genuinely very anxious about going to to bed.