ASD Child waking at night

EqualFit

Hi All,

I am the father of a four year girl with ASD.

For the past year she keeps waking up at night (typically 1am) and comes to our bed. This is ok sometimes, but she can be very agitated and keep myself and my wife up all night.

My wife bears the brunt of this as my daughter has become very clingy to her.

My daughter takes melatonin before she goes to bed.

Any advice or experiences on this would be appreciated

KaneToad

I can't comment specifically about ASD but, from a practical point of view, is there any option for you & your wife to alternate who sleeps in the parental bed? With the other spouse sleeping in a spare room.

Sleep deprivation is very, very difficult to handle. If you knew that you'd get a night's sleep every second night it would ease the stress of it.

Good luck and hopefully some ASD specific advice will arrive soon.

phill106

No easy answer, my child similarly seems nocturnal sometimes, also asd and also on melatonin.

Found a lower does can often work better then a higher dose (for us 5ml works best). If she wakes at 1, had previous dose been over 4 hrs ago? Check with doc, but another dose then should be possible. It only helps them get to sleep, doesnt keep them asleep.

We have found that certain drinks can be triggers to keep him up. Obvious ones like coke, but also less obvious like iced tea/ lucozade. Gets very giddy.

I know screentime is a big nono, but with us we kind of have to allow it. Lower the volume and brightness. Blue light/ night mode option if possible.

Also have the clinginess, so much so that if i try to take over, would literally be pushed out of the bed, annoyed with me, waking him up more.

One thing i did find regarding clinginess, when my wife was unavoidably away, he was fine once he saw she wasnt there when going to sleep. However if she is there, her prescence is required!

Its very hard, no good answers. Try and get sleep when you can, even if you are similarly going to bed at 9pm!

EqualFit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121637539#Comment_121637539

That would be ideal. We tried that last week, my daughter woke up later, realised it was me in bed with her, not her mother, then ran around the house looking for her mother.

Thanks, though for the suggestion

EqualFit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121637543#Comment_121637543

Totally the same with my daughter with the clinginess.

If my wife is not there she will happily go to sleep, only seems to be an issue when she is there.

Nice to know we're not the only ones

fits

Could your wife go into her room and sneak out when she settles down again? That’s what we did. It should reduce over time.

My two cents

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058332118/asd-child-waking-at-night

Hi I am new to this ,I have a son with asd and many other difficulties, who is 22 YEARS OF AGE,HE ALWAYS HAD TERRIBLE PROBLEMS WITH SLEEP AND SWITCHING OFF, HE SEEMED to here every little sound hyper senative, we tried everything over the years but nothing seemed to work, I know how stressful this is for the child,adult and family, we also had our child on melatonin for several years, we were getting to the stage were we taught we my need to get a sedative, and we really didn't want to go down that road ,my son spent alot of time inside because he was very anxious about the weather, and I myself was diagnosed with a vitamin d deficiency, so I did a bit of research and I found that omega 3 fish oils and vitamins are so important for our asd kids,adults, when you think about it alot of them are very fussy eaters, maybe don't get out enough exc,I put my son on a high level of vitamin d and c ,and a high dose of omaga 3 fish oils ,in a short time you could see changes in my son ,everything from much less anxiety, going out for long walks in all weather's,and sleeping well every night and so much more ,it's night and day the changes are remarkable, I have told some friends in similar situations what we did, and they are having great results, they can't believe it ,I really hope our story helps other families, and they to can have a much brighter future, as I said I have no training only been a mum and carer for 22 years, I really hope this is helpful, and if you do decide to try it ,I would love to know how you get on,and maybe it could help other families, we all have to help each other with our experiences

fits

That’s amazing. Thanks for sharing that. I just bought vitamin d for my kids last week. Have been lax on it in recent years. Thank goodness he sleeps ok - just an early riser ( 5 am today) Sleep is so important. Thinking of everyone who doesn’t get much.

drunkmonkey

We put a smartwatch with a constant blood oxygen monitor on our 10yr old last week and his blood oxygen was in the bin, going down to 70% at times, I was always thought something was a bit off at night as if you turned off his light he'd wake straight up, full sure he wasn't getting proper sleep which is a lot of his problem and seems to have over lapping symptons with sleep apnea in kids. He appears to be fast asleep.

News article on it here from nbc.

https://abc7.com/post/could-childs-adhd-symptoms-sleep-apnea-doctors-say-are-signs/15498359/

Went to the doctor with the data now have a referral for a kids ent specalist, might be worth checking out to make sure your kid is actually getting proper sleep. Nobody ever mentioned this to us, if I didn't get diagnosed with sleep apnea myself a few months ago due to day time tirdness I would probably have ever noticed something was up.

His tonsils seem fine according to the doctor, he thinks it's in the upper airways somewhere.

lightspeed

We have been experiencing our daughter waking every night since 18 months. She is now 3 years old. She is non verbal and displaying many signs of autism.

Im not sure where you are based but Murrays let us trial the safety sleeper and this device meant when she woke she could not escape.

The CDNT in Balbriggan just pretends they have nothing to do with funding but Murrays advised CDNT in Cavan have funded them.

To buy privately from them the cost is €4667.

That was well out of my price range so we got a bed tent on the internet for €84.00. It's not purpose built so not as strong but is just about working for us.

We just get further appointments with CDNT if we protest who just give us same generic advice. At this point, theymind aswell just advise me to tell my daughter not to be autistic.

https://murrays.ie/the-safety-sleeper/