ASD Parenting!

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Hi, I'm an adult with autism. My wife is neurotypical and is most likely pregnant. We are very excited. I'm trying to be prepared. I looked for books helping autistic people be parents. All I found was books for neurotypical parents of autistic kids. My wife says I should write one and I probably will. Anyone know if they already exist?

Using Google search with the phrase "autistic parents" and puttting that entire phrase in quotes, I just now found the following articles:

- Autistic Adults as Parents - verywell health
- AsperDad: Growing Up With a Parent on the Autism Spectrum (Maybe) - Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds
- The Joys and Challenges of Being a Parent With Autism - The Atlantic
- 4 Moms Share What It's Like to Be an Autistic Parent - Parents
- Autistic dad shares his struggles with being a parent - BBC
- Tips For Autistic Parents| Purple Ella (video)
- Why Autistic Parents Need Support, Not Judgment - the Autism Site
- Mothers with autism: ‘I mothered my children in a very different way - Guardian

Didn't find any books, though. Just articles.

Thank you! I forgot about quotes. I am well on my way to being the dad clueless about technology

Great links, Mona! Thank you for providing them!

@geerock61,
Welcome to WP! I'm an autistic woman and single "autism parent". I survived to tell the tale! I didn't know any better to be honest, and I just did what felt right for both of us.

Congrats on your (likely) little one-to-be!

Thanks for weighing in. Mona, I read every link and it's all good info. I feel a lot better already. I only got my diagnosis a couple weeks ago after obviously dealing with SOMETHING my whole life. Not even used to that yet, of course it's the perfect time to be a dad I was sad to see that being an autistic mom seems to be harder than an autistic dad. It's not fair like so much else. I'm glad we can talk to each other.

The biggest concern I can think of is sensory. If you have a lot of hypersensitivities, a baby / toddler / child can trigger them. Smells, sounds, colours, actions, textures, you name it. You might be surprised by what you can handle or not handle when it comes to your little one. In some cases you obviously don't have a choice, but in a two-parent relationship it's possible there could be some give-and-take. You might agree on certain roles for periods of time, so you won't have to confront those sensory issues.

The other concern is a change to your routine and your need for downtime or privacy. Basically, you won't have a sense of either one for a very long time. Again this could be negotiated with your partner so you get adequate rest and a "time out" from the responsibilities. Having a personal space is good, if the baby is safe with the other parent. I didn't have that luxury but as the years went on I built myself a pillow fort and other places where I could be alone with no disturbances for short periods of time. Now we just ignore each other as much as possible (lol).

One of our members, he might be a former member because he hasn't posted in awhile, was named Jason H.J. Lu. He was ASD and had two children that were also ASD and he wrote a book about it called "Eikona Bridge". His wife also encouraged him to write a book about his experience (and his insight and solutions).

Our baby just hit one year.
I think the best advice I can give is to look out for signs of milk allergy (or just avoid the whole mess by being strict about breast feeding).
We're pretty sure cow milk-based formula was making him break out with eczema and suffer from colic.

The constant screaming was so hard to deal with, I wore ear plugs often, or headphones + ear muffs. Sometimes I just had to put him down, collapse in bed, and let his mother take over.
Get a good rocking chair and queue up a lot of shows/movies to watch with the CC enabled (or audio dramas and some headphones). Curse at the programs that don't have any CC.

Also, we bought a Crescent Womb, and that was nice. Made it much, much easier to get him into bed without waking him up.

Around six months, he turned into a relatively happy baby. Way less stress now.

Teething is pretty awful, though =) But nowhere near as bad as colic.

Yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble with the poop, the smell makes me seriously gag. I put on my mask every time now, and that helps a lot. We usually double-team those diapers when we can, so one of us does the actual changing, and the other one makes sure baby doesn't roll over, kick too much, or put their hand in the pudding.

... the pudding ... lol


"If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

I was relatively OK with ... pudding ... spitup ... vomit ... crying ... but I couldn't handle high chairs. Bizarre!

I didn't like the food getting caked into the crevices, or having it squished on the tray, or having to push it around because it made a weird rolling sound. I hated trying to go to restaurants, and couldn't stand the noise when she threw a plate or her sippy cup on the floor.

Now that she's an adult I can deal with anything except lumps. I won't feel lumps or bumps of any sort.

Haven't gotten to that point yet...we're still spoon feeding him. We're supposed to be getting him used to more solid foods, but it's difficult, I don't know how you're supposed to teach them to chew it before swallowing.

Also, obviously, no restaurants at the moment =)

I'm not too good with vomit either, but that hasn't been a problem for him. Just a little bit of bile when he chokes, on the rare occasion that we risk him trying more solid foods. Had that happen with a dill pickle slice the other evening.

I used to make all the baby food by steaming fruit or veg, and then pureeing them in a blender. You can mix flavours too. I remember plum and apple being a bit hit. I froze the puree in ice cube trays and put it in vacuum sealed baggies which I could label. She loved it for the most part. I don't remember teaching chewing and solid foods, or how that progression happened. I'm sure I was obsessed with doing it right, at the time but I don't remember.

How old is he? How many teeth?

He just turned one year. Only eight teeth, his upper canines are both coming in, but they're taking their sweet time.

I didn’t do well with puréed foods; I can’t stand any kind of food that doesn’t need to be chewed, and would gag trying to feed it to them. I ended up just giving them little chunks of soft foods that they could self-feed and mash with their gums. Not sure if it was something they needed to be taught (chewing, etc); they just did it on their own.

The pediatrician has been on us for a while now to transition him to more solid foods. It's weird, because almost every other milestone, he's been months ahead of where he should be.

I think speech is the only other one he's behind on. He'll babble, but the only meaningful "word" that he says is "ahh-ma-ma-ma", which means "bottle" (blame his mother for that one). But he's been saying it since he was almost five months, so I guess technically he's ahead??

Sometimes he says "nunununu" which seems like it means "no", but I'm not certain on that one yet.

But he definitely understands some words...I can say "go kick the soccer ball" and he'll do it.