help me understand what my son means (sensory ???)

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My son, who is 4, has recently been saying that various things "hurt" his legs- wearing long pants, having a blanket over his legs, etc.

When he was a baby, he didn't seem to be able to feel pain of any kind and used to seek any kind of tactile info- rubbing paint or food all over his face and hair, throwing himself off the stairs, etc. Now he has become the opposite- doesn't want to touch certain things, doesn't like to have food stuck to his hands, etc.

I am trying to understand what he means by "hurt," because he ends up waking up throughout the night because he is too cold but refuses to wear pajamas or use a blanket over his legs. He also will not wear pants to school, and the weather is getting colder.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I need to get him in something warmer so he will sleep better.

Last edited by laplantain on 12 Nov 2007, 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

It could be that it is the wrong material, which could be extremely itchy or prickly, making it feel like pins and needles dragging across his legs.

My son says that jammies hurt his legs as well, and I figured out it's not the material in his case, but the same problem that I have. Tight fitting pants, to me, they make my legs almost feel swollen-it actually is painful. They don't even have to be super tight for this to happen, just tight enough to brush against my legs constantly. I like a LOT of room in my jeans, lol, so I tend to wear more of the industrial/skater types of things because in general they are just roomier. Tighter pants also give me the scratchy feeling, it feels like something is just scraping the hell out of my legs when the seams brush against them.

It is either the pressure of the fabric, the tightness of the clothing, or the fabric itself. It is definitely sensory related. When my son started saying that, I dressed him in only cotton, loose fitting clothes. No more problems.

I have always adopted the policy of letting my son try on things until he finds something that seems okay and then I buy one in every color. This past year, there came a time when everything was so awful for him that I finally took him to the fabric store and told him to feel up everything in the store until he found something he liked and I bought a few yards of it. He got 10 pairs of pj bottoms and 15 hoodies for Christmas that I made for him. I did the same thing when I was in school, which was actually instrumental in me learning how to sew clothing as nothing ever felt right. I made a lot of my own clothing. It's definitely a sensory things and as others mentioned, it's either the way it fits, the fabric, or the cut of the item. I'm not suggesting you go out and learn to sew if you don't know how, but it has certainly been helpful over the years in learning how to deal with a huge chunk of my son's things. We just walk around JoAnn's feeling up fabric until something feels good!

Just a thought, and maybe he just doesn't have a word for it yet, but have you tried talking to a doctor about RLS. And no, I DON'T mean let them give him drugs for it (even though there are) but at least there are non-chemical things you can do if it is really pain.

At 4 it might not be.

Luck.
Btdt

Yeah, I remember when I was very young I used to love getting filthy. I loved to play in mud especially, getting it all over my hands and feet. These days I don't mind getting stuff on my feet, but getting stuff on my hands causes extreme discomfort. I really dunno what to say about it since I don't even get help for it. I just get told to "suck it up" and "get over it." I don't think it's that easy, and, in some strange way, I don't think i really want to get over it.

As for stuff causing pain, I don't really know if I can relate. Though, I never liked to get changed for gym class because I had to wear sweatpants or shorts made of material that the school deemed appropriate. Both sweatpants and shorts felt too loose and lacked the pressure that I liked. I did find that if I didn't move too much in them it was tolerable, but you can only stay stationary for so long in gym class before someone starts yelling at you. Eventually, the school made a compromise to let me wear heavier, cargo shorts.

So, uh, I dunno if either of those experiences help you at all, but, you know, they're there for you to look over.

I second letting him touch fabric for pants to see if there's anything he likes. For pyjamas, it may be possible to stop him from feeling cold just with better sheets - see if you can take him to Linens 'n' Things to touch some of the fabrics there. The bamboo fabrics can be particularly soft, I think. If you can get him to be more specific about why they're hurting, that may help you narrow things down. Is it the seams, itchiness, roughness, weight and folds in the fabric? etc.

The bamboo fabric (modal) is great if you can afford it. I found it on sale, but recently has gone up in price again. Jersey knit is a good (but not perfect) substitute. my son says it feels "cold", which he likes. Right now he is not liking his Jersey knit sheets so he's using my childhood comforter (which is a cotton poly blend that is "cold").

My son prefers short pants. I used to buy shorts that were to big for him (so they'd last longer) and so they went to his knees. He's just very used to wearing stuff like that.
For bed I got sweat shorts. I got them for both bed and play time. We lounge in jammies a lot. He loves them.

I don't think it would be RLS, as I have that, and it has nothing to do with pants or anything. It's literally a feeling of muscles crawling or something, lol. It's highly annoying and doesn't matter what fabrics are being worn... mine generally only acts up when I'm relaxed as well.

Now, I could be wrong, there could be other cases of it in which it is not the same.

I'm still a huge fan of feeling up the fabrics in stores or fabric shops. It's gotten us through many episodes in our house. When my son was 4, he couldn't tell me why clothes hurt him or even what that meant. I think that is when he went through the wear pajamas every where phase. It didn't hurt anyone and he was comfortable. School dealt with it because he was a good kid overall. We had pajamas only phase. We had flannel pants phase. We had sweatpants only with the elastic cut out of the ankles. We went through thermal bottoms with shorts over them when the weather got cold and couldn't get him to wear long pants, this was the compromise. We went through miles of starter suits. Then he discovered baggy carpenter jeans. (He even lets me embroider dragons and things on them occasionally!)

So, I say, don't fight this as a battle. It's a stupid battle. (Not that you are fighting it as one, but I'm saying before it becomes one.) Just try to figure out what he likes and buy 10 of them. When my son was that little, I bought several different kinds of things and we tried them on at home (to this day at 16 cannot use dressing rooms) and then you can return what ever is vetoed. If you have questions you can pm me. We went through this at our house and I can prolly drag out a bunch of the ideas that we went through if you need extra help. Clothing is one of my son's biggest sensory issues.

I think it just means that it really does hurt.

Some textures caused me a great deal of discomfort to the level of pain as a young child. Things like woven nylon fabrics (like rain coats) to subtly rough textures (the shell of a hens egg was untouchable for me) and some types of clinging plastics etc.

I also agree with nobodyzdream, some things just feel "prickly" and scratchy against the skin like some types of wool are like wearing a shirt made from hair clippings with pins sprinkled through it. Even things like corduroy would send me off.

He might be using the appropriate word. He's lucky to have a mother who listens and wants to know what to do for him, mine didn't.

Thanks for all the ideas.

I had been letting him pick the pjs- I didn't think to have him try them on first. I was only thinking about the softness of the fabric, but I didn't think about the weight, the seams, etc. I will also look into different bedding options. He gets all tangled in the sheet because it is too big for him, so we set it aside, but then the blanket by itself is not soft at all. Will take him along to test those out as well.

My daughter likes silks and she wants them turned inside out (the seams she hates) and cut the tags out.

When he says it hurts, it does. "Hurts" adequately describes the pain, whether it's noise, touch, smell, taste and/or sight. It obviously does hurt as he prefers the cold to the pain the clothes give him (the cold keeps him up too, that's telling of the discomfort).

There's not much you can do other than finding something that doesn't hurt.

It's just one of those things we're given -- sometimes I cannot wear shirts for example due to the feeling of discomfort; I've found that it comes and goes with me, with some luck it may improve for your son.

He might not have a frame of reference. Hurt is being used for a wide range of discomfort. It sounds like he is using it for a blanket term for several shades of meanings, indicating a problem with language(common with kids on the spectrum). if so, he needs to be taught ways of expressing that more clearly, and you can start by having him compare "hurt" in this case to other hurts, like itchy, constrictive, a scraped knee maybe.

Its like when little kids say their head hurts, and you have to figure out if its a head ache, or they bumped their head or something.

A tip about bedclothes...is your son a cocooner? My son has a fleece blanket that he rolls up in like a burrito. We also don't do top sheets at our house because my son and I both are cocooners so top sheets are absolutely useless as anything but a hanging tool or bondage equipment. So maybe look into getting a blanket that he can cocoon into it. My son has done this since he was born. The only thing that would keep him quiet when he was really little was to roll him up real tight in his blanket and lay him down. Happy as a clam that one.