Bedtime troubles

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Again, this proves my point about aspies and bedtime troubles. Eyphur, when you there lying awake, you were bored out of your mind, weren't you? I think this is the reason why so many aspies have a problem with going to bed. Aspies, due to their brain wiring, often have trouble being relaxed enough to go to sleep, so they end up lying awake bored. Basically, bedtime = boredom. Parents, if you want your aspie kids to go to bed willingly, do something to make bedtime less boring. Give them a strong dose of melatonin to shorted the boring "falling asleep" time; talk to them a little after turning off the lights (as mumstheword wonderfully described); or simply let them go to bed an hour later, so they'll fall asleep faster from being more tired.

The melatonin we have is more like candy. It's orange flavored and very sweet. Dh gave a sliver to our 1 year old one frustrating night (we've had a talk about not doing that again--except perhaps in case of emergency ) and now when he sees us giving it to our 7 year old, he points and chants "candy candy." It's supposed to be sublingual (suck on it under the tongue) but I think ds chews it and it works just as well. There's no hint at all of any nasty taste, like w/ chewable Tylenol for instance. I've taken it myself and it works really well. THe only thing I noticed was if I took it too early and had to fight to stay awake, I will get a little nauseous. But I tend to get nauseous when I'm really tired anyway.

Hmmm...all of these responses have been extremely helpful. I'll take him to the Dr. March 15th and let you know what happens. Thanks again to everyone for helping us out with this! I thnk we'll end up exercising a bit of both. Maybe use the Melatonin if we know he has a big day coming up for which he'll need extra energy and letting him adjust himself other nights.

We gave ds the melatonin nearly every school night for 2 weeks. THen we just quit and only give it when he asks. He only needs it about twice a week. It was almost as if his body couldn't adopt a schedule w/out help. ANd once we got him that help and on the schedule, he didn't need the help very often anymore, if that makes sense.

Start out with just 1 mg. You really shouldn't need more than that for a child. Even I usually only take 2mg. The kind we get is cherry and is also sublingual, but my ds chews it and it works just fine----also remember I am not a doctor

I'm smirking as I'm reading this post... It's after midnight, and I'm up waiting for DS to go to sleep. We've tried everything, and for now are trying just letting him have books in bed and falling asleep when he's ready. The problem is that he's often up really late, and is really grumpy when we have to wake him up in the morning. We're definitely going to ask the OT about getting a weighted blanket at our next appointment!

Does taking books & other toys out of the bedroom help with the falling asleep process, or does it mean more times running out of the room?

In my experience, taking them out would be worse because boredom usually causes anxiety in these little ones.

That's been our experience too, but it's good to get some reinforcement. Parents of NT children have often suggested removing his books, etc. from his room...but he really just doesn't seem tired. So, we insist that he stay in his room (preferably in his bed) after his bedtime, but we don't push the falling asleep part. I remember lying awake for hours as a child (and still do) and know that it is impossible to force anyone to fall asleep, and any attempts to do so with our ds usually just results in agitation and anxiety.

I'm not looking forward, though, to what these sleep patterns are going to mean when it's time to go to school every morning

I found that if I dedicated a few weeks to it, I could readjust his whole evening routine to make bedtime easier. He would go sleep earlier, wake up earlier and be ready for school. My little guy is 8

It's very easy for parents of NT children to think that if you parented your child like they parented theirs, there wouldn't be an issue. But...our kids, their brains aren't wired the same as their NT peers so sometimes the tricks work. Sometimes they don't.

Amen to that! One of the things that I find hard about AS is that my son LOOKS just like other kids, and can even act like NT kids (although his differences are becoming more apparent as he ages)...so it's not obvious to other people that his brain is different, and so unless I explain his diagnosis, there is not a lot of understanding about his "immature" behaviour (I know it's not immature, but that there are specific neurological reasons for it...but it is not age-appropriate behaviour much of the time).

It was a constant struggle for having our midst son staying in bed for about 3y+ of age (now , our 2 year older daughter almost killed us trying to get her asleep in a ribbed baby bed by herself. With a steady flow of rolling off bed and into the floor from our bed when we gave up and cuddled with her. Two things saved us, a 7cm socket on the spring madrasses and me and my ex on two sides of a 210cm wide bed with our daughter between us to keep her from rolling of the bed.

We got help through professionals to actually sleep training them. All three. But the smallest is now under heavy sleep schematics reconstruction. He's frankly a pain in the ass, and I have learned over the years to always sleep on my side with a arm covering my kidneys and another arm covering my face just to protect me when he rolls around in bed. It's a bit like first you get a foot shoved under your neck, than the turn comes and he, in best case, slap you headwise, worst case, he does a 180 and unfortunately the hit area is kidneys with a flying foot. Nothing he can do about that, just I should have been wearing hockey goalie protections.