He wants to snuggle in our bed at night, again

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melatonin to help him fall asleep? Its totally natural and OTC.

Yep- get an mp3 player and speakers- endless repeat! My son requires music/audiobooks/audio rips of favourite sesame street videos all night too. And we have a variety of playlists that he knows and can choose and they play on repeat all night long. He used to wake up when they stopped but we started slowly turning the volume down incrementally over a while after he went to sleep and now we can turn it off most of the time. He still wakes every night in his room. My husband still has to lay with him to get him to go to sleep/go back to sleep. And my husband still sometimes sleeps the whole night with him.
As you know, my son is only 3, so we are not sure if it a maturity thing he may grow out of. He also is a constant snuggler (and a constant talker/singer/noise maker too)and loves and craves the physical proximity with another person. I think there is an anxiety component too. We are still figuring this out- along with sooooo many other things.

Good luck to you.

I have not followed the whole thread and this may have already been mentioned:

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My son is 14 and on a mat on my bedroom floor. It is anxiety based. Staying with him in his room until he fell asleep didn't work, and didn't get better after literally years of trying. After too much broken sleep for me - we basically gave up and lat him on our floor. However, in the past year, his anxiety has increased and now whenever he wakes in the night, he wakes me up and says "watch me". I must lay there and watch him for him to get back to sleep.

This is miserable for me, and he has no interest whatsoever in working to change it.

He takes melatonin, Benadryl and xanax to get to sleep (I'm not looking for judgements - this is the best we can do with what we've got, and have tried EVERYTHING he's willing to try. )

My DH and I would desperately like some alone time.

Schedule.
Routine.
Habit.

Does he enjoy reading? What does he (or would he) spend an allowance on?
Allowances are a compensation/encouragement for succeeding at tasks that will eventually train you to live on ones own in the adult world. Now I'm not saying "pay him to go to his own bed", what I'm saying is -

As long as there isn't some underlying reason (changes in the neighborhood, the house, etc, or fears that he is missing out on mom-dad discussions, etc) something like this might work:

idea 1:
Read to him in your bed, with the understanding that when the book/chapter is over, he ought to return to his own bed. Episodes of the favourite family tv show might work too, but research shows tv right before bed disrupts chemicals in the brain.
What this does:
Gives him the security of a guarantee that he will be welcome in the bed each night. Gives him time to see "what happens" when his parents disappear into their bedroom (omg they go to bed!) each night. Gives him a fixed and predictable duration (we like fixed and predictable) for his stay, so that he will be able to get his fix of parent-time without it being sullied by fears of being kicked out "arbitrarily" when you guys are "fed up with him" (which feeling i am exaggerating, but I am not exaggerating the fact that that internal fear/conflict sullies the together time, making it less satisfying).

idea 2:
Tell him he has a new project, and he needs to think about it for a week, write down his ideas, and propose them to you by (satur)day. Come saturday, you will negotiate from his list of ideas.... on how to make his bedroom more comfortable / safer / more interesting at night. Maybe all he needs is to count glow in the dark stars plastered to his ceiling as he drifts off.
Reasoning: There might actually be a solution or problem he himself has not conciously realized is there - but that given the assignment to focus on, he might self identify and solve. Make the solution a priority for HIM and turn HIS awesome problem solving brain onto it. This is a good way to handle MANY situations he (and you) will encounter over the years to come - since the only one who can read his brain is he himself.

idea 3:
Make a proposal. Suggest that
Mom and Dad need more "quiet time sleep" since the "bed isn't big enough for three"
but!
That you will give him two "vouchers" a week to sleep in your room.
The rule is that he must declare voucher use by dinner time, else he must sleep in his own room.
(you can still work the "one chapter before bed, in our bed" angle in conjunction with this, either consistently, or as a backup during transition and acceptance failures)
Depending on how good you handle this, it might do the trick.
Reasoning: Doesn't cut him off the all night bonding entirely. Teaches him the additional skill of harbouring resources. Gives him some feeling of controlling his own fate. Also dips in to the reasoning on the two ideas above re: no fear of eviction on the "voucher" nights will make voucher nights prized, and non voucher nights uncomfortable / ie savour the voucher nights, come to be uneasy with the non voucher night (and thus rather be in his own room when "not invited").

***

Edit: the reason i started this post with the lecture on allowances is to put you in the right frame of mind; ie a parent's role is to get a kid ready for eventual independence - and as an autistic kid, you might consider this take on the whole bed with parents thing, as he can probably accept the logical value of such a position.

"It's not personal, it's just business"

ALSO if you need to butter the pot, give him a better allowance, or a promised trip to the bookstore (or whatever) every week (or month) that he obeys the boundaries of the new proposal.

Ask him if setting up a video camera in his room, so he can watch himself (the next morning) on the video, would help. Maybe he wonders what he does when he sleeps. or is heading to sleep. Maybe he has a worry that the camera could answer. (You could set it up in your room, on him, for the first time so he still has that protection at first)

Maybe once he gets comfortable with his sleeping patterns, from a perspective of outside his body, he'll be okay? Did he see a movie where someone choked or died while falling asleep? Would having a panic button in his room work? (He'd probably over-use it for the first little while... give him two weeks, then tell the story of the boy who cried wolf, every night before he goes to bed until it slows down - or you abandon it)

I think it's technically OCD, so not at all logic based. We have discussed using face time with our iPads, so we can see each other while in separate rooms...nothing works. We have literally tried everything. At this point, I was just offering my experience to the op - not really looking for a solution. Unless, of course, someone has a way to get him willing to work through discomfort. Rewards are not effective and consequences are harmful.

The problem with OCD treatment is, there needs to be a degree of willingness to be uncomfortable on the part of the person, and my DS is just not there.

I agree that it could be sensory-related...you know, the sensation of being gently sandwiched between two warm bodies. I know I liked that when I was a little kid. Up till I was about your son's age I would sleep in my parents' room all the time because I was so scared of thunderstorms and lightning, and the way the windows in my room were erected made high-velocity winds sound eerie and ghost-like. That, plus some bedtime anxiety and the sensory seeking I mentioned.

There were also times I slept on the couch or in a spare room because a spider got into my room, or because I had gotten sick and vomited in there, or something. I felt as if my room and bed were somehow contaminated or that there were other spiders or vermin lurking about, so I would camp out on a sofa or a roll-away bed in my dad's study (with all my favorite plushies, books, and blankets, natch) until my dad could convince me to return to my former quarters. Your little guy hasn't had any scares in his room or his bed recently, has he? Just wondering.

If you suspect that sensory seeking or just wanting to converse is the issue, I have a couple of ideas. I know you mentioned in the "coping item" thread I started that your son isn't really attached to any stuffed animals aside from the one you made for him, but maybe some plushies could provide the sensory input he enjoys in bed. I get plenty of soothing sensory input from the ones that sleep with me.

Either that, or one of those really long body-length pillows you see in college dorms. I think you could even buy long-ish pillowcases that have Cars, Marvel heroes, whatever your son is into on them. Maybe sleeping amongst one or two of those long pillows would mimic the feeling of sleeping with you and your spouse.

Also, I was in Hallmark not long ago, and they're selling this book-and-plush-toy set called Kitty Night Night designed to help kids fall asleep in their own beds. The stuffed white tiger it comes with isn't intended as a sleep toy, but a "guardian" of sorts for when the child sleeps. Although I'm sure you could re-work the concept with any stuffed animal you have around.

Hope this helps.