Thanks. I have tried that, but he still wakes up at 430am regardless of when he goes to sleep but he then sleeps for less time and gets more tired.
He's always woken up early, I think this is just a bad patch and hopefully will improve with time.
It normally takes me a couple of months to adjust to the hour forward and back thing, which I am not in favour of as a tradition in that it rather messes up my routine.
I have Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures which basically means having stress induced seizures ~ so missing sleep and routine changes tends to make things difficult in that respect, hence I go to bed half an hour later or earlier depending upon the season to incrementally change rather than break the previous sleeping pattern.
Maybe as time goes on and your son's personal responsibility develops along with your trust in him to be responsible ~ the familial patterns of interaction and transaction will blend and merge quite amenably to become more a matter of parental pride regarding his reliability; rather than so much being a matter of great concern or worry ~ perhaps?
It normally takes me a couple of months to adjust to the hour forward and back thing, which I am not in favour of as a tradition in that it rather messes up my routine.
I have Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures which basically means having stress induced seizures ~ so missing sleep and routine changes tends to make things difficult in that respect, hence I go to bed half an hour later or earlier depending upon the season to incrementally change rather than break the previous sleeping pattern.
Maybe as time goes on and your son's personal responsibility develops along with your trust in him to be responsible ~ the familial patterns of interaction and transaction will blend and merge quite amenably to become more a matter of parental pride regarding his reliability; rather than so much being a matter of great concern or worry ~ perhaps?
Thanks very much, you have given me some good stuff to think about and also thanks for sharing your experience.
Glad to have been of some assistance.
Sometimes alternative perspectives and ranges of experience can provide a better outlook or a more balanced assessment of things ~ rather than just feeling like one has their face pressed against a tree in of one those 'can't-see-the-wood-for-the-trees' scenarios, especially when sleep depravation and worry are confusing the matter.
Just writing about one's issues and identifying with others or just being accepted to greater or lesser degrees can help us come to terms with our feelings, and thereby adapt old or develop new executive strategies / methodologies.
I agree about the clocks changing!
I always experience a massive but short lived surge of hope every time I read about campaigns and petitions to end the seasonal clock and routine changing disturbances.
Developing his personal responsibility is something I can definitely think about more and work on I think.
Personally as someone who never feels alone with exception to being in the company of others and not fitting in ~ I always preferred and prefer the company of myself, and keeping out of trouble or not disturbing others is something I found to be very important to me in order to be left to my own devices and follow my directions of interest.
My parents knew I was different and that I did not respond or react normally to the usual conventions and interventions of society, but they knew next to nothing about Autism until I was forty five by way of getting diagnosed, and my sleep issues involved not being able to sleep at night until about 4.00 in the morning, and obviously I more often than not only got about four hours sleep a day during my education ~ which involved massive issues with getting up late and missing the school bus when I did sleep.
I was rather an Insomniac for decades until I started sleeping during the day instead ~ which because of hypersensitivity to ultraviolet light meant I was getting too wound up to relax at night, whereas once I started sleeping through the day I actually started getting regular sleep intervals.
It is so comforting that knowledge of Autism is pretty much common knowledge now or at least information about it is readily available.
One book I highly recommend for parents and feel it should be provided on diagnosis is The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, by Tony Atwood, being that it covers all the developmental stages and has workarounds for most problems at home, socially and educationally.
My mother said she wished she could of had a copy of it when I was a child, and I was certainly glad of it as an adult in that it helped me to better come to terms with being on the autistic spectrum ~ and it really helped to narratively reframe and make sense of my developmental divergences as not being purposeful stubbornness and such like.
If you have not already read or looked at it (or cannot afford it) there is free PDF version available if you (or anybody else) find it useful via the following link:
Maybe others might offer other suggestions bookwise, and as Plastic stated:
To be honest, be grateful that you have such a small sleep issue
Plus:
The easy option is for you to go to bed an hour earlier and get up with him and have quality time - in the peace and quiet of the morning, you'll probably find him really receptive to all sorts of off-the-wall learning experiences like astronomy or just reading encyclopedias together - data input with lots of glossy pictures is priceless to us.
I was planning to cover this angle also with the explanation of my my sleep difficulties as above mentioned, with a fortunate happenstance for me being that my mother is an intellectual bookish type with similar and dissimilar interests to me, so I would contentedly read all of her books one by one when I could get away with creeping downstairs for intellectual "midnight" feasts ~ rather than laying in bed bored to frustration and agitation, or fretting about past, present and future social calamities I invariability caused, got involved in or was forced into.
Another tip that has proven useful for self orientated sleep regulation that might also prove helpful to your son or at least other readers and their children ~ is using time activated lighting; such as a bedside lamp, so that if one wakes up and the lamp is not 'on' ~ one can learn to rest or meditate until the lamp comes on.
This was a technique that I advised on and my mother used as an emergency adoption carer to help develop personal responsibility in her charges, so that when they woke up early ~ they could either sleep more, meditate or else turn the lamp on and read a book or draw or write quietly without disturbing anyone else's sleep.
Quite a few of the children came from abusive households and were more inclined to going unnoticed and not making their presence known at all, so the ritual of having help in choosing books, letter writing or colouring books and such like got them used to being cared for and facilitated in terms of their interests and their education.
So seeing your response to Plastic's suggestion:
I like the quiet in the morning as well and like the sound of having some time with my boy.
Was a total heart-warming 'Arr bless!' moment for me ~ so thanks Plastic and Sheila Mac, and I hope you and your son have really good one followed by many many more!
Thanks very much, you have given me some good stuff to think about and also thanks for sharing your experience. I agree about the clocks changing! Developing his personal responsibility is something I can definitely think about more and work on I think.
I've also thought more about changes other than the clocks and we had changed some things around in his room. I've put it back to the way it was, just to see if that helps.
