Pillow Talk

Let's talk about sleep. I'll give a little information and then a little personal experience. For many Autistic kids, sleep is a big issue. Their sleep patterns vary, but they usually have a lack of sleep, therefore, their parents do too. It's like having a newborn who never gets out of the newborn stage X 10. I have been fortunate to have a good sleeper in Asher. He easily gets 8-10 hours a night. He doesn't take a nap during the day and he, literally, never stops moving until bedtime. Getting him to go to bed has been a challenge though. Some nights, he won't give it up. If he falls asleep in the car coming from therapy or a ballgame, I can guarantee that he won't go to bed at a decent time. If he sleeps for 5 minutes during the day, it's the same as him having a 3 hour nap.

"Sleep and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Sleep problems are very common, reportedly as high as 80% in children with ASD. In typically developing children sleep problems and insufficient sleep can result in daytime sleepiness, learning problems and behavioral issues such as hyperactivity, inattentiveness and aggression." (Autism Speaks)

These days, he's in our bed. He was climbing out of his crib, so it's long gone now. Asher has gone through several bedtime rituals. It's rare that Randy, Asher, and I all go to bed at the same time and wake up together the next day.  We do a lot of couch sleeping. It's a frustrating situation every night. Asher will not sleep with any blanket. He has to sleep with his head at the foot of the bed, practically hanging off. He got in the habit of throwing all of the pillows in a pile on the floor and sleeping on top of them. This caused me so much anxiety. I finally got used to it. Of course, he changed again. We now get into bed and he turns the light on in the bedroom. He puts his head against the head board and looks down under the bed for a long time. I think he likes the contrast of the light and dark in the room. He'll make several trips out of the bedroom, get in the refrigerator, look for a snack, and finally make his way back to the bed. He finds his spot at the foot of the bed and doses off. So, we go to sleep with the light on and it gets turned off in the middle of the night.

Yesterday was a horrible, no good, very bad day. Asher had fallen asleep in the car. It was 8:30, so we had hope he would just stay asleep. Well, at 2 am he looks at me and whispers, "wow." It was all over. He stayed awake until I put him in the car to pick up the kids from school that afternoon. Not only was he awake all day, he was a terror. The highlights of the day were when he dumped a family size box of cereal in the floor and pulled all of my barstools into the living room and flipped them over. He ended up going to bed around 11 pm. Even though this day was one I'd like to forget,  I have to remember that so many do a version of this every day. Yikes...

Asher's pillow pile 

He did this 3 times yesterday 😕. Randy said this looks like some Poltergeist stuff.