Need help and very new on here...

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Please excuse me as I have never posted on here before but really need your help. My child, aged 8, is currently being assessed for Aspergers-it is taking sooo long!-but we have a recurrent problem here. He falls asleep very quickly but is then like a fish out of water. Throws him self out of bed, thrashes around, if I put his younger brother's old bedside on he will physically push that off, all whilst being asleep. He grabs hold of you to stay and actually cries but all whilst in his sleep. My question is-is this connect with Aspergers or something else entirely?? The only thing that will stop him is to bring into our bed but then I get no sleep as he thrashes into me (no where near as bad). He has no idea in the morning apart from being exhausted.

Hope you can shed some light on this.

Well, it could be really bad nightmares. Or it could just be an under active sleep paralysis. Either way, I don't think it has much to do with Asperger's Syndrome. However, if you are looking for ideas, have you looked into bed rails? Just Google the term, and you'll see what I mean.


Also, welcome to the forum.

I don't know if this is "Aspergers" symptom or not. I also have an 8 year old son diagnosed with Aspergers and he does nearly the same thing. He doesn't really thrash so hard, but he does sleep with me and tends to kick and grab a lot. It seems he needs to be tethered in order to relax enough to sleep. The kicking and thrashing around is more of an ADHD thing - which you see a lot of in Asperger kids.

My son is terrified of sleeping alone and started sleeping with me as an infant. I have tried many ways to get him into his own bed - but with bad results. I am not willing to lose sleep every night because he will call out and cry relentlessly, or have him work himself into an asthma attack because he's so afraid. It's a problem, and for now he's sleeping with me until I have the time to work on a solution.

If you have the time and energy to do this - I think it may work to have him sleep with you in two twin beds side-by-side... and then gradually, over the course of weeks, move them apart. This is what I plan to do when I have time... this battle is not the top battle on my list of priorities right now.... but I do plan to get to it before he's a teenager

**By the way, Melatonin helps calm the sleep quite a bit!! !!

When we were in the beginning of the diagnostic journey, this was one of the first issues the psychatrist wanted to address. DS was an "active" sleeper and also would have terrible night sweats. He felt that the poor quality of sleep could be causing some of DS's problems. The Pdoc had us give DS Melatonin nightly instead of when he was having trouble falling asleep. This improved his sleep greatly.

This problem is in no way related to AS.


Its actually more common for Aspies to have trouble getting to sleep.

I used to do the same thing when I was younger. My mother told me that she already felt sorry for my future wife.

My daughter is the same as BonnieBlueWater. Terrible anxiety re: going to sleep and sleeping alone. If I put her to sleep in her bed, she will wake shortly after and have trouble falling back to sleep, anxious that I will leave her alone. When I sleep with her she is also restless and kicks, cries out, etc. I can alleviate this by cuddling up close, applying pressure. If she has some weight on her it lessens. So, my advice would be #1 try to alleviate any anxiety and #2 try weighted blanket or cuddle up snug with him and #3 try Melatonin (works for my daughter). My daughter doesn't like blankets on her but if I apply some hugs to her when she starts to jostle she will settle down and resume peaceful sleep. This must be related somehow as most kids with autism have sleep issues I believe.

Yup, we have this - made co-sleeping impossible when he was a baby (I used to say it was like sleeping with a propellor blade.) My son also has waking nightmares where he screams, walks around the house, begs us for help...and he remembers nothing in the morning. They're similar to "night terrors" except he is able at least to hear us, so sometimes we can reassure him.

I found this website, maybe it will help a bit: http://www.nightterrors.org/dis.htm

Look into weighted blankets. I also have an 8 year old Aspie son and he had terrible sleep issues until we got him a weighted blanket and put LED (christmas) lights in his room.

Hey,
I'm new here too! I'm not a parent but I was browsing the parent's forum and this thread caught my attention so I thought I'd contribute. I have Aspergers I'm 15, now and since being in primary school I have been taking melatonin tablets to help me sleep. Naturally people with Aspergers Syndrome have less levels of melatonin in their bodies which helps them to sleep, I wonder if your son's strange sleeping habits are associated with that? Anyway I'm no sleep expert.
If you take your son along to your GP, maybe he or she can prescribe your son melatonin and give you some advice.

Thanks very much everyone.

Any more views welcome!

We are off to a CAHMS appointment on Monday, it has been rearranged twice (so fingers crossed) and we have waited 2 years for it! I am hoping they can help, if not back to the consultant paediatrician. We are finding this so difficult, seeing our son in such distress, the only saving grace is he seems to be totally unaware in the morning.

My son sleeps the same way. I took his bed out of his room and put his mattress right on the floor. That way when he falls he doesn't get hurt.

I have noticed that he thrashes much less in his sleep if he is in a very tight confined area. (which he also enjoys. he has always liked sleeping in laundry baskets or plastic tote bins.) So the plan is to make some type of cubbyhole for his new bed.

Ah, I've been helped a lot by CAHM's they're a great service and they prescribed me prozac

My son has terrible problems sleeping he is now 12yrs old we do go through a period where he settles for a while but then we are back to square one. As he is going through puberty I have had many discussion with him about sharing our bed but to no avail he keeps saying monsters and has hallucinations or unwanted imaginary people not sure. Sometimes I dont feel him coming in and he takes hours to fall asleep. He doesnt like it if we all go to bed at the same time he is afraid.

I have a spare bedroom with two beds so I told him a number of weeks ago that he just cant come into our bed and the only compromise I was prepare to make was if things got bad that I would sleep in the spare room him in one bed and me in the other and this is the only way it can be for the future. I did this on two occassions and he is now sleeping in his own room and hasnt come into ours for a couple of weeks fingers cross this works.

I also had the same problem with my daughter she stopped coming in when she was 13yrs

Its a long hard battled and very tiring.

Good Luck