My 12 year old daughter was diagnosed with Aspergers a couple of years ago.
She has always been terrible to get to bed, taking a very long time to settle, fighting sleep, right from day one.
After years of fighting and struggle we decided we should just stay out of her bedtime routine and leave her to it.
But now the time it takes her to get to bed/sleep has spiralled out of any control - up to three hours every night.
She spends ages 'tucking her bed in' - going around the edges making minute adjustments to how tight the covers are.
She spends ages in the toilet - taking up to 20 minutes 'having a wee', then going back into the toilet 15 minutes later because she is 'bursting for a wee'. Then going back in again just 15 minutes after that! (This isn't helped by her almost obsessive water consumption - I showed her last night that in less than 3 hours she drinks nearly a litre and a half of water!). She always seems to be on the toilet!
It is now past midnight before she is finally getting to sleep, then she has to get up at 7am for school the next day! She constantly complains about having a headache!
My wife and I are so worried about her - her capabilities at school will surely suffer with so little sleep (she'll happily sleep until 11am the next day if allowed to). She's a really smart girl, very intelligent, and her AS doesn't manifest itself in the structured school environment. Just in the more chaotic home environment.
We have tried discussing things with her, to make her understand she has AS, to try to help her reduce the time her routine takes, but she refuses to believe there is any issue. We have begged her to help her mum and dad to reduce their stress by shortening her routine, but she can't. She just gets stressed and upset, and the routine continues.
Finally, last night she admitted that she just can't change her routine - if she went to bed at 7pm (which she wouldn't do anyway), she'd still take 3 hours. It's controlling her (and worrying us!).
My wife and I really feel like we can't cope with it!
Can anyone, please, offer any help/suggestions?
