Well not in this house anyway! Let me set the scene for you.....
You are walking around downstairs packing lunches for the morning, sterilizing baby bottles, making sure there are no valuable toys or essential remote controls left within the dogs reach for a midnight snack, switching off lights when this is all done you can start locking up and set the house alarm. You drag your exhausted little be-hind up the stairs, check on all your little darlings sleeping soundly in their warm cosy beds. Reluctantly brush your teeth and collapse into your lovely soft comfy bed. You let out a giant sigh of relief, You lie there for a few stolen moments thinking this is heaven. Listen to that ........ aaaaaaaaaaah silence. You begin to drift off to a land with no nappies, whining or even the sound of your own voice. .....Until you hear it. That dreaded sound. The sound that can only mean one thing. You're sooo not sleeping any time soon!
Autism is awake! It is the tiniest little giggle to start off with. Then it turns into full blown self talk conversations, scripting their entire day start to finish, including any TV programmes he may have watched or apps he may have used on his ipad that day. (My son is "non-verbal" .... not at night time!!) Then when he is fully awake still chatting to himself he wanders into your bedroom . You try to take him by the hand and bring him back to his bed and he stays there ..... for about 30 seconds! And before you know it his 3 year old brother is awake and they are both hi-jacking your bed. This is not a new thing for us, I mean Diddles is 6 now and I honestly can not remember if he has ever slept well. Infancy maybe but then I had nothing to compare his sleep patterns to, he was our first so everything seemed exhausting. I remember a few years ago complaining one day in work about being exhausted and some one suggested the super nanny bed time routine, we tried that and needless to say but it was an "Epic Fail". This was before I had heard the word Autism and my sons name spoken in the same sentence. So many Children with autism find pleasure in repetitive behavior so therefore me taking him by the hand and bringing him back to his bed 50 times a night had him laughing his little head off. He found this hilarious. This was not good for his poor parents working a full day after maybe 2 hours broken sleep. Things had to change! I knew deep down that I was doing everything I possibly could to relax him and it simply was not working, I felt like I was going insane with the lack of sleep. Then it became all I could think about. I was getting throat infection after throat infection from being so run down, I was an emotional wreck what the hell was I doing so wrong?!
When "D" day came along and we got the diagnosis of Autism it was a really sad day but it also confirmed that this was not my fault this was a neurological disorder and when I heard insomnia was a common trait I was so relieved we had an explanation... well sort of seen as there is no known cause or cure for Autism but anyway. We began to tackle his sleep issues.
First of all we introduced a
visual schedule of his bedtime routine.
Secondly, Then we began to look at
under lying issues, we learned that his
diet had a major impact on his sleeping schedule. He had an intolerance to Dairy and gluten, we found this out after we had him tested by a local Microbiologist as he suffered from a sudden on set of terrible diarrhea. Known as a leaky gut, his immune system could not absorb the nutrients and vitamins he was consuming. He was constantly sick, ear infections, colds, vomiting bugs he caught everything going and it did not matter that I had been giving him a balanced diet and vitamin C etc, because nothing was going in. We did a detox of dairy first and then a week or two later gluten. It is quite difficult to get you're head around the diet at first but it does become second nature after a while.
We found that his health improved a huge amount, rarely now would he get sick maybe once or twice a year, I think this has been down to the change in diet and the introduction of supplements also. We use Calcium, magnesium and zinc, a pro-biotic and an iron supplement. The Gp just prescribes antibiotics left right and center and you are never told if this will affect your childrens health in the long run so if you have to give one give a pro-biotic also! After we followed through on these things his language started coming and he lost that far away look in his eyes and started making eye contact. You could see how much happier in himself he had become and his personality began to shine threw. Autism will always be in our home but there are things you can do to help some of the symptoms.
Thirdly, His insomnia is still an issue he just can not switch off and he is afraid of being alone so recently we went down the road of getting a prescription of melatonin for him. This works well with the initial send off to sleep but again it does not keep him asleep. Maybe two nights of the week he will wake during the night now but at least we are all getting some sleep!!!
We are bringing him again to have food intolerence testing done to see if there is something else like a food allergy/ intollerence that is keeping him awake, we are also getting him assessed for ADHD so will find out soon. I really believe food and routine are the answers but I am still working on them! Wish me luck !! :)
(*Images courtesy of google)
Christmas can be so stressful for the child with autism and of course for the family! Apart from the usual sensory issues surrounding the day and the anticipation for the child of what is to come their way, for parents buying presents is always done with the best of intentions. Previous years have resulted in wasting money on presents that were not opened and meltdown after meltdown, this year took some careful consideration. We now understand each other better. It only took SEVEN years! Better late then never! I really think this was our best Christmas yet. Full house on Christmas morning. We knew this year not to wrap presents and to allow for our little Autie to go for breaks in between getting his presents, he is not keen on the sound of paper ripping. I brought him upstairs with his new National Geographic planetarium in a dark room and let him just chill out. Mean while... downstairs the younger two munchkins ripped open their presents, having a great time together and this tiny little change to our usual routine made all the difference to our Christmas Day! This was the trigger to all hell breaking lose on previous Christmas mornings. I am delighted to say there were no tears or meltdowns for the day and EVERYONE enjoyed themselves.
1. Theraputty - Fine motor skills, you can hide things in it. It is tougher than playdough so the child has to work harder to find things.
6. A Plasma Ball - Visually stimulating and very calming. 
7. Bunny Sleepy Time alarm clock - Analog clock designed to solve problem with child getting up too early! [Worth a try will let you know how this goes ;) ] 
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