15 year old with Autism only wants to wash on specific days

Hi all,

My brother has autism and he’s more on the low functioning side with limited speech. Getting him to wash has been so difficult because he decides the days he wants to wash. If you say to him “can you go wash now?”, he will repeatedly say “wash Monday, wash monday” increasingly getting louder and more frequent till he starts screaming. It’s so loud and very stressful for me because I’m the one who he torments with this request.

He wants to wash just twice a week but he smells so bad after a few days. We managed to get him to wash every other day but he broke out of that routine. I’ve tried setting up a grid where he gets a sticker for washing on the certain days it says but he lost interest and he wants to do it his way. And there is no forcing him to wash because he will scream and scream and scream till he’s allowed to wash on the day he says he wants to wash. The other day, a few weeks ago, he was screaming for hours because he didn’t want to wash that day.

He knows when he doesn’t wash regularly he will smell, he can smell himself because I catch him sniffing his armpits. But he doesn’t want to go wash when he can smell himself.

I don’t know what to do about this. Can someone offer any advice?

  • i struggle a lot with routine of washing i wash on wednesdays and sundays fully , but have learnt that i still need to wash a little on the other days , so i use wetwips everyday and somtimes have showers to relax, try to ask him what he struggles with around washing it could be a simple sensory issue that can be altered. for example; i wouldnt use dehodorant because of the feeling but i tried a cream dehodorant and find that a lot easier to use . maybe try diffirent smells or diffirent types of shower gels to entice him . i really like foam shower gels because it gets really thick in my hands :)) i would strongly suggest offering wetwipes while you both figure somthing out. hope this can help in some way ? good luck :))

  • Hi NAS37998,

    You may be able to find some useful information on the following page:

    https://www.autism.org.uk/about/health/self-care.aspx 

     

    Elena Mod