Son terrified of bad weather- no sleep- any ideas?

[craptastic]

My son (autistic) has always been terrified of windy, rainy weather at night time. It freaks him out and when he was little this always resulted in him coming into bed with me or vice versa.

He is 12 this year and if weather is bad (which it has been for a while now), he will still come into my room in the night, shaking and crying. He cannot be sleeping in with me anymore- a habit we broke a couple of years ago.

Tried ear plugs, he wont wear them. Allowed him to listen to music quietly on his ipod if it was really bad but he recently confessed that he was playing games on it, so I can't trust him to have his ipod in his room overnight. He sleeps in same room as his sibling and is now waking her up to comfort him.

I don't know what else to suggest but he is EXHAUSTED! He's off school today because he is just so tired and it's giving him headaches. His anxiety levels every evening are also at an all time high and he is constantly checking the weather.

Anyone been or going through similar and have any solutions? He needs to sleep from about 8.30/9-6.30 to function and at the moment I think he is getting half of that if he's lucky.

[reader108]

Same here wind rain upset him big time. He woke once in a storm, and there was a power cut, now the moment it rains he thinks it will happen again. He listens to story cds on his clock radio. He knows he can come into me if truly not able to calm himself down. He's 10 occasionally he sleeps with me anything for a quiet life I'm afraid,and we all need sleep.
We discuss 'what's the worst that could happen.' It's only noise etc etc not much help sorry

[Borka]

A noise machine might help, my DS has this. You can plug it in to headphones or pillow speakers, as well as having the sound coming directly from the machine.

[Bananasinpyjamas1]

Really good double glazing?

I just let my son come in with us, or watch TV for a bit, and it has got easier. Also try and have an active day before bad weather comes, lots of outdoor running about and a nice good big meal, so he's really tired.

[ouryve]

Replace the iPod with a cheap MP3 player for bedtime - will solve the game playing, at least.

[craptastic]

Thank you for all the replies.

I just know letting him in my bed once or twice will then turn into a habit again. He is also likely to tell people (he constantly talks about the weather with anyone and everyone! and if peers over hear he might get teased (this happened a lot in junior school)

I have an mp3 somewhere, not sure why I didn't think of that!!

Going to look into the noise machine, thanks.