Waking an Aspie

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My daughter, if she wakes before her "time", is a mess. She cries, whines, has herself a nice little tantrum and is basically unreachable until she comes out of it. For this reason, I HATE nap time and usually try to avoid it. Which is difficult because she benefits from the nap and I seriously need the break (her mouth and body are both in constant motion from the time she wakes to the time she sleeps - I love my daughter but she is very busy).

Does anyone else have this problem and/or any suggestions on how to handle it?

perhaps more transition time between the first "wake-up" and having to actually "get up and function".Personally I still have trouble coming out of that world...don't allways want to and sometimes just so foggy making the transition between worlds(very vivid dreamer)....It takes me at least a couple hours of hours to function after first awaking and some of my naps end up turning into a very early bed time....

Sleep and dreams help all humans process what happened since the last time you slept....sensory and social "challenges" mean we may need more time to do that processing?

What age is she? Does she need the nap? My son used to be like this sometimes with day naps. I could always tell if things were going to be difficult if his breath stunk when he woke up. Try sensory input, maybe. My son seems to calm down when he is wrapped in a duvet or blanket and can just "be".

I have found that my AS DD needs longer than a "normal" kid to unwind and get ready to function. She wakes up an entire hour before she goes to school so she can putt putt around and take her good ol' time to get ready, eat, and feed her pets before she leaves for school. She does much better when she's left alone to do her own thing and can get ready while the younger kids are still in bed.

My 5 y/ son with mental retardation needs extra time too. He's not ready to do anything before he's ready. Forcing it turns into meltdowns. We were dealing with daily morning meltdowns before we switched him to the afternoon Kindergarden schedule. I refuse to get up earlier than 7:30 to get the kids out the door by 8:20. I'm NOT a morning person either. LOL! It doesn't help that I'm a night owl and stay up WAY too late most of the time. I'll be in trouble after next year. I'll have three kids that need to be out the door by 8:20. 5 y/o is repeating Kindergarden and 4 y/o sister will be in K too, so I have one more year to enjoy waking up near 8:00.