What is your pre-schooler after school routine?

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I am asking this question to get advice on how to improve my 3 yo after school routine.

This is our current routine. He gets 22.5 hours a week education and therapies at a special needs pre-school. They do not have naptime. He is taken to school by his dad and brought home by the bus. The bus gets him home in about 15-25 min after school officially ends.

Three days a week, he immediately comes in an has his lunch, something to drink and then just lays around on the sofa. He will tell you that he is tired but he refuses to lay down in his room (he likes his room though). He lay on the ground, sofa, suck his thumb and sometimes may wave his hands in front of his eyes. If ask for something and doesn't get it, he may cry and usually fall asleep a few minutes later on the sofa.

Two days a week, since I have to go into the office those days, the baby sitter will put him and his 1 yo sister in the sit and stand stroller and walk the 10 block round trip distance to pick up his 6 yo brother from school. The have to go into the school to get his brother so of course he is walking in a building with lots of kids, noise and people/kids may bump him. They come home and proceed with eating etc.

I know my little guy is tired but I don't know why he does not want to go to a quiet place and lay down. He prefers to take an hour nap on the safa with all the noise around him. I would love to reduce the crying that happens a lot because he is so tired. If we put him upstairs in his room, he comes right back downstairs. He will only stay upstairs if I lay on his bed with him.

At night time he will find his way in his big brother's bed almost half the time. He big brother is really comforted by this. So I know he is pretty comfortable in his room. What do you think is going on?

Is there anyway I can make evening time more comforatble for him? After he wakes, he takes a bath and eats his dinner and can do whatever he wants to do until bedtime. He interacts enough with everyone so I don't try to force him to do anything.

Do you think we should be foreful and make him take a nap in his room?

I don't understand why it's a problem if he naps on the sofa rather than his room.

When my son was in pre-k he never let me devise any kind of routine for him. He would come home, and I would make him a snack and he would pursue his special interests. He really did resist any control over his schedule. He would not nap, but then again he had refused naps well before then, and would not take them, no matter how sleepy.

Your son might like the background noise in the LR and find it soothing. What you describe sounds like he is trying to self-soothe. He may be too over-stimulated to nap right away, and then he calms himself and voila!

The night time issue does not seem especially particular to autism. I think he might just find it comforting to be with his sibling in the dark, night.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 12 Oct 2012, 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I personally see no reason why he can't just rest on the sofa if that is where he is comfortable, but I will have to admit that I am very lax about stuff like that. My kids are both down in the family room on the pull out sofa as I type because on Friday night they like to have a "sleep over."

I sometimes like to nap on the sofa, too. Perhaps there is a reason why this is not a good idea, but I am blissfully unaware of it

Thanks for the replies. I don't think I explained myself well in the first post. I was "talking" to some other parents on another forum and this topic came up. The conclusion was that I should get my son on a more predictable schedule. They also suggested that naps should only happen in the bedroom so that there was a clear understanding that you slept in beds. They said allowing him to fall asleep where ever he wanted to lead to other sleeping issues down the line.

I basically wanted to see if my "let him do what he wants to do" attitude would eventually cause problems down the line. Sometimes I feel like everyone else has these answers and I am just trying to figure it out. I am happy to know that others don't have a set schedule everyday. But this confuses me because I keep hearing about setting a schedule and predictability.

I am working on an after school routine for my son, too. Thing is, my son no longer naps. I have a small table in my living room in which I would permit him to eat a snack, and my ABA therapists told me that he needs to be eating in the kitchen (on his high chair), not in the living room. So, I stopped letting him snack in the living room and only feed him in the kitchen in his chair.

I think routines are helpful and lessen stress & anxiety. I don't do very well with "unstructured" times, either, but an impromptu schedule just happened for us, as we go pick up his sister after picking him up and we are home for barely an hour, before his ABA sessions start. By the time he is done, it is dinner time, then time with Dad for about an hour, then bath, and off to bed (regardless of whether he sleeps or not). He is actually quite sleep deprived and I am at my wits' end trying to figure this out and solve it.

All of this will change when I begin homeschooling, opening his mornings up. I will have 6 hours on my hand and will certainly need a strong schedule going. So far, though, I will simply cross that bridge when I come to it. If your child is busy and interacting with each other after his afternoon nap, then why worry ? It is a different story if he would go into a corner and spin, but if he is out and about, and just interacting, then I don't know if you need a schedule, unless there are skills you want to work on (like play skills) which the school won't help with?

Unfortunately, this is a difficult call to make. Some of my "let them do what they want to do" has come back to bite me in the butt. But there are other things where I think not making them adhere to "rules for the sake of having rules" has actually made things better. For example, my kids are not nearly as rigid as some others on the spectrum, and I think it is at least partially related to the fact that I don't expect rigid adherence to many things. Predictability is a good thing, but I don't think you have to be rigid to be predictable.

For example, I don't see what is wrong with having the "rule" be: "You may nap on the sofa after school, but you must sleep in bed at night." That is a rule that can be learned and adhered to.

Thanks for sharing your situation. The reason why I want him to nap immediately after her comes home and eats is because I know he is exhausted. His stim is the waving his hands in front of his eyes and he does that while laying on the sofa. So, it's like rocking back and forth in a corner. He will jump up unexpectedly and play with his sis or bro but he is so tired that he is then easily irritated, frustrated, etc. And then that makes him cry very easily. If he immediately took a nap, I think it would make it easier for him to interact with his siblings.

I guess most people don't have a strict routine so I guess I am not "damaging" him by allowing to do what he wants to do. Thanks all for your input.

Maybe get him a white noise machine for his room, or a bladeless fan? That is assuming he also "likes" the noise in the LR and needs it to feel restful.

The schedule thing messed me up for a long time. The school kept emphasizing schedules.

Here is what I found applies to my son:

My son requires downtime that allows him to pick and choose his own activities. He does not like this structured for him artificially. I am sure many children are 180 degrees from this, but that is how my son is. As long as HE is in control, it's all good.

That said, he likes the predictability of time markers (TV shows playing in the background etc. He has gotten better about this, but he used to have a royal fit when the TV schedule would change, even though he was not watching the TV.) He associated the TV program with the time.

Now, most of the above applies to our own home, where he feels safe and he knows how things work. At school he does relay on a schedule to make him feel grounded Why? Someone else is in control of his day, which makes him feel insecure. There are sensory issues with noisy children who accidentally crash into him or his stuff, etc. Knowing that things are at least somehow controlled and predictable help in this case. I fhe could he would still prefer to do what he wants, though, just like an NT kid.