Sleep problems with AS kids

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Our son (8 and AS) has always needed less sleep than normal kids- this has not been too much of a problem in the past as he has always been up bright and early. But over the past couple of weeks he has been impossible to get up in a morning- Dunc has even had to go collect him from school this morning as he feel asleep in class.

We've seen his paediatrician about this and her only advice was that people with AS often need less sleep and to let him stay up later. We're still waiting for an appoinment with the child development centre that deals with these kind of issues.

In the evening we are constantly up and down the stairs putting him back in bed and telling him to go to sleep but he's still rarely asleep before midnight. I'm getting to the end of my tether with this and am sick of the school making me feel like a bad parent because I can't make him go to sleep.

Does anyone have any suggestions at all about how we can deal with this problem?? My thoughts are that since he had a nasty cold bug last week he's still recovering for it and needs extra sleep but just can't get to sleep earlier than he usually does.


I've added a poll cos I'd like to find out if this is usual AS behaviour for kids or not (I know a lot of us adults have sleep problems)

I don't have kids, but I have always had trouble sleeping, since I was a baby, according to my parents.

For me, the problem was not that I couldn't go to bed early, it was that I woke up way too early in the morning, and also in the middle of the night. I frequently found myself wandering the hallways in the dark because I was bored and couldn't sleep.

My parents' solution was just to make me stay in bed in the morning until 6 am at the earliest. That didn't really help me sleep, though .

I suggest you try to start a routine for your son when he goes to bed, if you don't already have one. That helps a lot of people get into "sleep mode." I know I have a hard time winding down sometimes, my mind always seems to be racing, and it may be the same for your son. Try setting the time a little earlier than his usual bed time if he seems to need more sleep. Give him a glass of water, and maybe either read to him, or have him do some reading in bed, before he goes to sleep. You probably already know this, but definitely avoid giving him any sugary foods a few hours before bedtime.

Sensory issues may also play a part in keeping him awake. Make sure he's comfortable with the temperature in the room, and that the bed is comfortable, as well. Pay attention to the amount of light he likes, and if necessary, get him some earplugs. I have thick drapes I made for my windows here at school because we get a lot of street light even at night, and I wear earplugs, and these things help me out.

When I was a Baby (I love that word), I slept durring the Day and was awake durring the Night. Nowadays, there are some nights that I have trouble sleeping.

As a teenager with AS, I usually credit my unusual and occaisionally excessive sleeping patterns to being a teenager. Now that you mention your son's sleeping behaviors, though, I don't think I've ever been able to truly sleep until at least around midnight.

Once and a while if I had a physically exhausting day, or if I'm a bit under the weather, I can fall asleep earlier. Yet, ordinarily I'm up 'till midnight or later. Most of the time I want to be because I feel almost inspired at the late hours of the night. I ponder on the most philisophical notions and I just seem to function better.

I can never sleep in that late because I have to wake up at either 5:30 or 6:30 am for school depending on which day it is because some days I have dance class before school. Either way I find some time in each class to sleep. Obviously that's not what I should do, but in public high school -even if you're in all honors classes like I- there is always more down time than actual work.


I can't quite think of any advice for your son except to wait for the results from the child development center and make sure it isn't just his cold. If he really does have a problem sleeping the child development center should have some really helpful advice for dealing with it.

I'm an Aspie, and I've never had trouble sleeping! When I was about two weeks old I began sleeping from 9pm to 8am. My parents loved it. I've always been a bit of a night owl and even when I was a little kid I loved to sleep until 10am-11am. I usually can't get to sleep until 1am, even when I have to get up at 6am for school. On weekends and holidays I usually go to bed at 2am and sleep till noon (sometimes later). I have trouble getting to sleep if I can hear a TV in the other room or hear people talking, but once I am asleep, a bomb could go off and I wouldn't hear it!

Well I think he must still be recovering from the bug he had last week- he has been asleep before midnight for the past few days (on wednesday he was asleep by 11) and he is still like a zombie in the morning. Hopefully he'll be back to his usual bouncy at 7am self in a couple of days.

Thanks for the advice and stories,
Mel

My daughter Katelyn is 7 and she has had trouble falling to sleep at night since she was about 2. She goes to bed happily enough but will sit and read, or play with her stuffed animals for hours before she actually falls asleep. Bedtime for my two children is 8pm but most night when I got up to bed, usually no earlier than 11pm, Katelyn is still awake. She seems happy and rested in the morning for the most part so we have not been too concerned about it. I have asked her teachers if she seems tired at school and they say no so as long as that is the case, I don't feel it's a really big concern. I have tried baths before bed, music in her room, stories on tape, but nothing works. In fact , I think that the music and stories on tape were very distracting for her and made it even harder to get to sleep. I even tried Camomile tea at bedtime but she likes sugar in it which defeats the whole purpose!

Katelynsmom

Good point!

D sleeps well but does seem to need less of it. He's a very early riser. I agree that as long as he's doing okay during the day, *I* don't have a problem with it.

I used to let him stay up late but that was such a problem. Not for D or me but for his older brother who just could not seem to accept that he had to go to bed earlier than D. I have no problem telling J that being fair doesn't mean being exactly the same, but since D was okay with going to bad at the same time and just getting up earlier, we went that direction.

BeeBee

It's 2am and I've given up on trying to get to sleep. I'll try again in a couple of hours or so.

Sleep problems have always been there for me. I used to, and still do, take hours getting to sleep at night. I also tend to gravitate towards being awake at night and asleep during the day, but constantly struggle with this inclination in order to be able to interact with the world. It's always so much easier to think at night, and I can go out for a walk without having to deal with the stress of passing people on the street all the time.

For some reason, I always get really dehydrated when I'm sleeping, or trying to sleep, and go through 1-2 litres a night. It's really impossible for me to sleep when I'm dehydrated, so you might want to make sure that's not an issue for your son. A glass before he goes to bed might not be enough, and a large amount of water on-hand would be better.

Well my 4 yr old son Dylan doesn't have AS but is HFA and from ages 2-4, he rarely slept through the night, now he takes hours to get to sleep and wakes up as soon as he sees light in the morning and assumes he and everyone has to be up at 5-6 am because it's daytime. I used to have problems with falling asleep, would lie in bed reading or listening to music till I could fall asleep, still do that now at almost 32.

I have never had 'trouble' sleeping. Its just my sleep patern is usually about 1am till around 7am weekdays and like 3-4am till around 11am weekends.

I've been having sleep problems ever since i remember, usually i lay so long awake i can always remember what i was thinking/worrying before falling asleep, the only time i didn't and felt truly rested expect once.. which is about 4 years ago..

Last edited by OFfSprngr on 25 Jun 2005, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Up until I was 11 or so I was a regular sleeper through out the night. I had to be in bed by 9pm, but I rarely fell asleep until after 11pm, and then I would typically sleep the night through, waking up at 7am or so. I would get up all refreshed, eat breakfast, then watch the Jetsons on channel 32 before heading off to school.

But when I started sixth grade, I think it might have even begun during the summer right before I started sixth grade, my sleeping habits changed wildly. I dropped from getting 8hrs a night down to 3 or 4 hours. I would be in bed at my normal time, but I would wake a 3am and not be able to fall back asleep, and since then I've never been able to get back into any real sleep routine.

Same here, I am a night owl. I have a relative the same way. The daytime just sucks. Sleep is better than sunshine and owls are better than sun burns. Ohh... sounds like bad song lyrics...

Oops...Never answeres question...

I used to have problems sleeping all the time. Have you changed the sleeping schedule lately? It always throws me off when I have to start going to bed earlier, because I'll still have plenty of energy. Sometimes I'm really picky about room conditions. Just check to make sure you haven't changed the sleeping arrangement/schedule, it's annoying for me.

I don't have kids, but I have had severe sleep problems and sleep disorders my entire life (I'm now mid 30s).

Erratic sleep patterns (when not working I tend towards nocturnal), trouble getting to sleep, hypnogogic sleep paralysis and night terrors are regular ongoing features of my life.

I don't know whether I need less sleep than the average of the population, because I've never slept well and never woken feeling fully rested.