New parent to asperger's ~ sleep problem question.

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all aspies hav problems wiv sleeping it's just sumthing, but they have enough energy 4 the day but whatever u do don't go to any drugs even herbal ones

We have tried everything with our son and the best things that help him with sleeping are 1. Sticking to a bedtime routine 2. a heavy blanket... something about the weight comforts him
3. We let him read until 10pm. which I hate, I like my kids to be in bed and asleep by 9pm but whatever I've tried I catch him reading into the night, so we agreed on 10pm and it seems to be working.

Oh how familiar this all is! my 11 yr old, who is officially dx'd Aspie, slept so well as a baby (8pm-8am!) until his brother (now 8 ) was born. Neither have slept since. We now have 2 more kids (ages 6 & 3) and the older two cause a battle every night. We've had a consistant routine for years, but there is always some questioning of can they stay up longer, can they have another snack. My husband and I joke about how we switch the kids' bedrooms every 3 mo to try and make things better but nothing ever works for long. We have tried letting them share rooms so they aren't afraid of being alone, but they complain about the others snoring or talk all night. We've given them all seperate rooms but then they say they're lonely or they stay up later because no one notices. We even have sound machine clocks in every room to drown out any sudden noises.
I myself can't remember ever sleeping more than 3-5 hrs a night. I used to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading and then get up at 5 or 6 am for school. Can't say having non-sleeping children has helped that much!
I will add that the heavier blankets seem to help them stay calm and asleep better though, and I have to agree with having the house quiet at night! My 2 younger ones are in bed at 7pm and the older two go to bed at 8 and it is so hard to not stay up until 1am and just enjoy the quiet! My husband and I will sit in different rooms for an hour or two playing video games or watching movies. It's so nice to destress like that.
I have also been letting my oldest stay up in his room typing a journal on his computer at night, and I've noticed that he hasn't been having as much trouble this last week or two since we started that.

I take Clonidine to help calm me down and to help me sleep.

we just started Ryan on that to see if it helps.. since he has been a bay its been a horrible battle to get him to sleep. he never sleeps. and now that he is 9 and on ADD meds its really bad because the meds keep him up more.. we did the clonidine a few years ago but it put him in a funk and he could not get up in the morning. we just got the script so we started 2 days ago.. no difference as far as I can see..

As a baby he would never sleep. day care would force the naps and he would fall asleep and he would be up until 3 am.. it was a bad bad routine.. and they would not budge at all. very upsetting to all of us..

he is 9 now and he requires the blankets, dark room, sometimes to get his feet, legs tickled at night to help him sleep. he would only let myself or my husband touch him. so these little things work for us. thank god! although he does not sleep well i don't want to be like someone else on the list who says how much he despises his parents for what they forced him to do having a night routine.. I have learned what battles I need to fight.. I do like to sleep unlike my son.. so I just let him catch the z'sss as he can without making a huge deal out of it..

My little guy is 7 and has the same struggles. The things that work for us:

* Make sure he does something that burns energy after dinner. This usually involves a family walk down to the park so he rides on his scooter which he loves, goes nuts on the climbers, then rides his scooter back (we found once with 3 wheels which has been great since his balance can be off at times).

* After dinner he can watch a movie.

* I put his 15 mos old sister to bed first which frees me up entirely to be with him. He gets very aggitated if I have to conquer and divide between the two.

* We do toilet, teeth, read a book, back tickles, back scratch, massage.

* He has a lot of anxiety at bedtime so lately I've been sitting outside his door until he falls asleep which has worked very well. He settles down, I use that quiet time to read a book, use my laptop etc and it's actually forced ME to decompress rather than running around trying to clean the house or do laundry.

/me sneaks in...

Ok, so its technically the parents forum, but what they hey! I've never been able to stay out of a restricted area in my life, why start today...

I'm 16, I've always had problems falling asleep. My entire life. I would honestly rather stay up all night, and be tired during the day, than have to lie in a (usually) uncomfortable bed for hours, trying to sleep because I was told I should be sleeping. Ok, the nightmares/dreams and the whole getting sick almost every night has never helped either...

The only thing I've found that really works for me, is crashing. I am a caffeine addict, but I've lived for months with practically no caffeine, and it didn't change at all. Basically, if I can, I'll stay up from 8 in the morning till five or six the next morning, and up again at 8. The next night I'll only stay up till 4 or 5. Get up a t 8. Then up till 3 or 4. And so on. On the last day, if I have something to do, cause its usually Friday and I don't do anything on the weekends, I'll stay up all night. So from about 8:00 on Friday morning, till midnight on Saturday night. Then crash till about 2 or 3 in the afternoon on Sunday, go to bed Sunday night at12 and sleep till 8 and start it all over again.

Aside from doing that, the only things I could say that really helped me, were:
-Big, heavy blanket. I can't sleep without a blanket. I sleep with a douvet, winter and summer, just for the weight of the blanket against me. And I sleep with a blanket thats about twice the size of my bed.
-Cold temperatures. Heavy blanket don't work to well if its hot I sleep with the windows open and the fan on, even in minus 30 weather, and thats when I sleep the best. Its especially good for the computers in my room too
-Music. I need music to sleep, allot of other people I've talked to on WP need music to sleep. Maybe something to try. Country or soft rock

Hope this helps someone
Fooker

Fooker is wise...even at 16.

There's a couple of ideas in there that I'll have to try with my little guy.

Fooker great that you jumped in.. even if you are 16 we still need advice from someone who has been there and done it. unfortunate some of your methods might not work for someone who is 7,8,9. but we still keep searching for the best alternative. my son can not stand any noise in his room. and it needs to be DARK.. we have central AC so we don't open the windows. which is ok with Ryan because his bedroom faces a common walkway between building in an apartment complex.. i am not so sure my son has Anxiety as much as others. but really you can never tell.. and I thought it very informative that so many of you speak that u can not get comfortable. this is my son.. which amazes me because he has a waterbed. i bought him one because he slept with me for years and i have one. he wanted this also.. ii think it has helped him many nights get to sleep but he still speaks of not being able to get comfortable..

Colleen

I dislike sleep too.

Don't get me wrong, I get tired like everyone else and I do sleep? Sometimes well, sometimes not.

But losing several hours of each day for sleep is annoying.

I only sleep because I have too.. not because I want too.

I am also very nocturnal. That said I wouldn't make a good bat.. they sleep for about 19 hours a day don't they. Whereas a giraffe only sleeps for 1.9 IIRC (how cool).

I am also a master of power naps.

Well, yes... I prefer living life at night, when there is no one around to disturb me.

I find that melatonin, which is a natural hormone that you can buy in the supermarket, helps me get to sleep as well as anything. I don't like using it and can usually ignore it's effects pretty well, but... it's something that I am more willing to do than the harder sleep drugs, that I also ignore.

I should have said I was an adult really, as this in the "parents" section. Apologies.

However, my Aspie son (9 yr old) doesn't sleep for much either?

research says that giving meatonin on a regular basis to children during the growing years stops certain hormone production that a child needs to grow. we used to give my son that and my husband did research and found this. my sister in law is a PHD in Pharm Meds here in the states and we confirmed this research is true. I thought I would let some parents know this because our Dr told us to give this to Ryan and she never really knew the findings..

And can you tell me research's name? Because Dr. research doesn't appear to have any papers published to the effect in PubMed. However, there is research showing that it is useful in chronic sleep onset insomnia.

my husband found it a while ago. he said this is a great webiste that pharmacies use and are helpful with alternative meds.. its alternative medicine.com. here is the link direct to melotonin http://www.alternativemedicine.com/comm ... recautions

here is a very positive article here and I read at the very end that there is no long term study done of children that this institute knows of and that long term use of a hormone in children.. my husband just got home and he told me the research he did was thru the pharmacy he worked at and thru his sister who is a DR. I will try to get the info and scan it and post it here. oh well onto the artice I just found...http://bastyrcenter.org/content/view/717/