New parent to asperger's ~ sleep problem question.

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Hello everyone,

My son is 8 years old and we found out in December that he has Aspergers and SID.
My son has never slept well and from what I have been reading this is a common problem with children with asperger's. Does anyone know why this is and what can we do to help him sleep better?

I would prefer to try natural/homeopathic remedies before going the pharmacutical route.
Any suggestions would be helpful because when he is tired (which is almost all the time) he has a really hard time coping with life.

Thank you~Kristen

I could never sleep until I was prescribed rhemeron which actually not only allows you to sleep but also allows your body to take more advantage of the sleep than it would if it didn't have the medicine in its system.

Homeopathic remedies can't really do that.

One thing to try is to keep him on an evening routine. Predictibility and routines can relax someone with Aspergers. For example, if you want him to be in bed by 8:00 try doing this:

6:45 - If he's in the middle of something (playing/homework/whatever), mention to him that it will be time to get ready for bed in 30 minutes. Don't expect too much of a response...just his acknowledgement will be fine.
7:00 - Remind again, look for acknowlegement
7:15 - Tell him it's time. Include him in preparing for the next day by selecting clothing, organizing school bag, etc. Make sure you do each of these things in the same order every day. Remember, be predictable.
7:30 - Get ready for bed
7:45 - Bed time story (if he likes that) and give him a big, tight bear hug. This is sooo relaxing for some people with AS.
8:00 - Bed time

If you do this every day, eventually his body will begin to respond to the routine. His body will start to shut down to go to sleep when the routine begins. You may find that he falls asleep before his bed time. Be sure to wake him up at the same time every day.

If he's not sensitive to scents, you may try spraying lavender pillow spray on his pillow. It can help with relaxation.

Hope this helps.

Hello there!

Correct me if I'm wrong here (which is so likely!) but maybe your son has gotten into a routine where he is up half the night and feeling sleepy half the day. This way, he will always feel like he is one step behind of the action because he's always tired and can't be proactive - perhaps with the world nagging him all the time to play catch-up.

Perhaps there could be a way to break this routine which has become a bit of a vicious circle because it makes it impossible for him to deal with the demands of the day and that can only have a bad effect on his morale!

I know an aspie who is like this. He will not agree with me (actually I just called him and asked him his advice about this and he agreed with me) but I think that it is because he likes to be up at night because he can do his own thing and tinker around on the computer and de-stress without anybody striding into the room to interrupt him. But, being awake at night and worrying about stuff is not good because everything seems so much more hopeless when you think about it at night.

I don't know how old your son is but perhaps, if he's old enough to understand you could try doing the following which is all about having a firm routine for the afternoon/evening:-

1. Good walk and a chat during the day.
2. Get chores and homework out of the way fast.
3. Make sure he has a big dinner and a drink.
4. It's chill-out time where he has 2 or 3 of his favourite activities to choose from and no interference (he can do these activities near you if they are not to noisy). This time belongs to him and the outside world and everything in it gets shut out and there's no yelling or raised voices.
5. It's pre-bed time the same time every night and the lights go out and then a quick relaxed chat about the schedule for the next day:-
3. bed.

This works for my son every every time. Before we did this we could have him trampolining on our bed at 11pm. The only catch for us is that, in order for him to go to bed, I have to go up and sleep with him too - all night. This is fine for me because it means that I will get up in the morning. If he goes to bed late he will always have a bad day with loads of melt-downs so we have to have this routine.

Please try not to use any drugs!

All the best - hey - try everything - whatever works - something will.

In general - a peaceful bedroom environment perhaps. Maybe a routine. Another mom said a doctor told her to make sure her son got a certain amount of sunlight in the afternoon which is supposed to help the body produce it's own melatonin.

I think it just may be a natural tendency for some people with AS though as my son seems to get a lot more focus at night than during the day - even in his ability to communicate. And I find I can easily stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning. Even when I was very young I would stay up very late at night and read in bed (even the dictionary). Getting up early in the morning didn't effect my going to sleep any earlier either - still doesn't.

Another to consider is maybe is there some anxiety involved - either from sleeping in his own room or worry/racing thoughts about the next day. There was another interesting discussion about how some kids on the spectrum perhaps "missed" a developmental milestone in their ability to regulate themselves to be able to go to sleep on their own. There chronological age may not match their emotional age so they may be intellectually 8 but more like 3 or 4 in regards to being to calm themselves down and go to sleep on their own. Don't know how accurate that is but it was an interesting idea. The person mentioning this is undergoing training for RDI which I have also looked into and am not completely "sold" on.

Sorry - just seen sundy's reply. It took me ages to do mine. But I just wanted to say, how true.

My son begs to go to bed now because he's less stressed.

It's all about routine. He knows what to expect and he loves that and he is the best person in the world when he knows what the routine is. I never ever thought I'd hear myself say that.

LOL - I was just posting something similar. I do not find that waking up earlier has much effect on my ability to go to bed earlier. Which would be normal - I used to go with very little sleep the entire week when I was in school and then sleep in late on the weekends in order to try and catch up. I CAN sleep in or seem to sleep better during the morning. And last night I was up until 3am (computer ) and then tried to go to bed. You know you have to but I think it may be that the house is peaceful and quiet and you just don't like to miss out on that.

LOL - I was just posting something similar. I do not find that waking up earlier has much effect on my ability to go to bed earlier. Which would be normal - I used to go with very little sleep the entire week when I was in school and then sleep in late on the weekends in order to try and catch up. I CAN sleep in or seem to sleep better during the morning. And last night I was up until 3am (computer ) and then tried to go to bed. You know you have to but I think it may be that the house is peaceful and quiet and you just don't like to miss out on that.

If he's at all interested, see if jogging or running or some similar form of exercise helps his body go to sleep at the proper time.

Pat, prescribed exercise for severe stress when the Employee Development lady was bleating about meds - and very glad the doctor preferred the gym!

Isn't that nice when the house is all quiet and everyone is asleep? That makes it so hard to go to bed!

I know - it makes me want to eat a box of chocolates and watch a DVD - any old rubbish - and stretch out on the sofa and relax - but I know that an angry little baby aspie is going to wake up and haul me back upstairs to bed!! !!

intrestingly i have alot of trouble sleeping, i have to be totally shatterd before i get any sleep. the exception to this rule is when i get emotionaly tired and then i just take some lion time.

anyway, recently i have been in the lucky posistion of not having to get up for school, and have thus been able to stay up into the early quiet hours like i like to and then be able to get up in the morning without an issue.

When i fist moved in with my foster parents i was totally unable to sleep on my own, and even now i do find it very very hard, i am lucky i have lion to help, no lion, nobody else, no sleep.

intresting topic, will have to keep whatching it, i need to figure out a bedtime routine fr myself.

jammie.

Nice to hear from you again Jammie. Hope you're well!

I'm going to bed - it's late here and I can hear my son calling me so I'm off!

Wow, this brings back a lot of childhood memories. When I was a kid, I viewed sleeping as torture in its purest form. In fact, I defined "sleep" as laying in bed, tossing and turning, and counting minutes. The worst thing about "sleeping" was hearing my parents watching TV, laughing, talking, etc. (The apartment I lived in at the time was pretty small, so I didn't hear any of THAT.) If my parents made me go to bed at 8 or 9 PM, it was pretty much a given that I'd still be awake at 11 PM. Since my parents didn't check on me after tucking me in, they happily assumed that I dozed off in minutes. Once I actually feel asleep, I was almost always jarred awake by nightmares that often took place in my own apartment. On top of that, waking up very early was a problem too. On weekend mornings, I'd be wide awake as early as 5 AM, although usually at 6 or 7 AM. My parents ragged me about this to no end, saying what pretty much amounted to "you're a bad person for waking up earlier than we do." Needless to say, that didn't help me sleep; I simply lay awake counting squares on the acoustic ceiling tile. Oftentimes, my parents heard me move around the room, and came in to "teach me a lesson" for waking up early.

In a nutshell, no wonder I hated sleeping. Honestly, who would want to lie in bed for hours while doing absolutely nothing waiting to fall asleep, then only to see something unpleasant and scary? If allowed, I would have no problem whatsoever with going to bed at 2 AM and waking up at 5 AM, and be wide awake and fully alert throughout the day. Naps were just as bad, although they didn't involve nightmares, just utter boredom from lying in bed wide awake for an hour. (My parents even had the nerve to take the clock out of my room during naptime, so I wouldn't watch it. I got around it like this: I placed an object on the windowsill, and observed how long its shadow should move across the ceiling in an hour. On cloudy days, I lay in bed and fantasized about moving to a country where it's illegal for adults to live, thinking out every detail to help kill time.)

At the age of 13, I did a complete 180, which continues to this day. My parents now know that they shouldn't ask me anything between the time I get out of bed and the time I finish my coffee. But honestly, it took me nearly a decade to get over my resentment of sleep.

My son used to have nightmares all the time, and has always had difficulty falling asleep. We have tried a little Sleepytime Tea before he goes to bed, and I read to him for 30+ minutes every night with him in bed. He takes a shower or bath every night. He would spend all night in the shower if I let him. It really helps him relax. As for the nightmares, his psychologist recommended he "knight" all of his stuffed animals and place them around the room to protect him at night. She also recommended a dream catcher. We tried both and these ideas seemed to help. He no longer has the dream catcher, but I think he still knights his stuffed animals. Every once in a while I'll find one in a specific place with some sort of G.I. Joe weapon!

This all sounds like my son! lol That is one of the biggest problems with him sleeping is that he is afraid of someone breaking into our home and hurting me. He will sleep with his star wars light sabers and stay awake to protect me. No amount of talking to him about it is not for him to worry about and that we have a big german shepard dog that will protect us should anyone break in. He has all the things that could go wrong in his head because he says yes the dog might protect us but the person might have a weapon and kill her, etc.

My son will fall asleep after a half hour to an hour after be put to bed but then he is up checking on us through out the night. He is only eight years old but he still thinks he is the only person who can protect us at night.

The only nights (which are very rare) where he sleeps soundly all night without getting up are when he is too exhausted and finally crashes.

Thank you all for the wonderful responses and advice! I must say I regret not finding this site sooner. Everyone has been very helpful and helping me see where my son is coming from.
~Kristen~