Autistic son very loud at night

Your son sounds a lot like my son. Tbh, I would be fighting to prevent my ex having any unsupervised contact with DS in the future. Anyone who can shout at a disabled child for something that they have no control over is not a safe person for them to be around, and I would worry about how it would escalate if I was not there to intervene.

Your ex is clearly too stupid to know that this is a situation that you have any control over. It happens. Given that he seems eager to palm him off into residential care already, it seems he doesn't like him much.

My DS goes through periods of waking up in the early hours and stimming vocally. Sometimes he goes back to sleep, sometimes he's now awake for the day. I'm not sure why he wakes up, but it's more common when the weather is hot.

If he wakes up and he isn't crying or in any distress, I leave him to it. I know he's safe.

We've tried melatonin and it didn't help. It.did make my DS more agitated. He wasn't mentally ready to sleep, and he fought it. Also, it only helps with getting him off to sleep. It doesn't keep him asleep.

I'd personally suggest to your ex that he moves out until you move into your own place if he wants a quiet night.

Sounds like my son he screams loudly it does get annoying what understanding, does he have?
I always say screaming has finished because that's what they say at school when they want him to stop inappropriate, behaviour, and ,he will stop for a bit
Do you have any respite?

x2boys
ah crap sorry I missed that, sorry op x

My son is severely autistic non verbal etc ,he does sleep well thankfully but he is extremely loud
He does a lot of activity at school ,he he swims daily in their hydro pool and goes on frequent walks ,we also now have a reasonable package of respite ( it took years to get ) all of this helps he's 15 and whilst some things get harder, his sleep definitely improved aa he got older.

Okay, don’t do this to yourself. You’re divorcing the man and as a result you can tell him to do one if he starts demanding that you control your son, who fundamentally can’t help it any way. It doesn’t sound like your ex understands autism or he wouldn’t be in there trying to fix it by shouting. Im not sure what the answer is, but you sitting up on tenterhooks all night because of your ex is not it.

He's nonverbal...

How do you think a social story is going tingelp a profoundly autistic child sleep?

I wouldn’t try melatonin if it didn’t work for him op, they tried it for my friend’s son, same deal. Try the things you’d try yourself, less screens, more calm, fresh air, room suited to sleep. When my brother is like this it is sometimes that he’s more stressed and other times we can’t explain it but every night if he’s not getting enough sleep it’s a problem. Does he talk about it?

When she moves out. Should have put that!

Her and her ex live together

Id take him up to.the GP and ask for help with sleep and tell the GP.that your ex is shouting at him. I would not be happy with ex having him overnights either.

Have you had good legal advice?

What about fidget type toys or something to help with his sensory needs- perhaps the stimming is indicative that he would benefit from something to help soothe him? I’m not a professional

He won’t always be a little boy coping with a huge disability. One day he will be a man and while he may not “grow up” in the conventional sense of becoming independent I can tell you from experience that he will mature and just as an adult can cope better with being, say, deaf blind, an older ds may have more to help him over the really difficult bits. Residential care is a reasonable option for lots of people, but lots cope at home with support. You must do what suits you all. I’d recommend the SNchat board if you need somewhere to talk.

Your son is also showing aggressive physical tendencies, he is only 9 right now but it needs to be nipped in the bud so that he isn’t doing it at school and learns that hurting you isn’t ok- the older he gets, the more of a risk he will be if he continuous getting aggressive.

You should maybe see a doctor (both you and ex as you both live with your son) and get some specialist advice and support. Your ex is going about it in a bad way but he’s right in a sense that you can’t cope with it much longer. You’ve tried the medication route and it hasn’t helped. You must be struggling from lack of sleep too if you’re up minding him half the night.

Why does ex deserve not to be disturbed at night any more than you do?
Why do both adults seem to think it is your responsibility to "do something" whereas exH gets to have a hissy fit at your child and shout at you? How is your child going to learn to behave well when he thinks a man is someone who shouts a lot?
Tell ex he's not your problem, if he can't manage his emotions, count to 10 or go for a walk. He's making you responsible for his moods. Explain once not to shout, then ignore.

As for your son, depends if he will burn himself out after 20 minutes or keep going. If he will keep going I'd be trying to move him onto a quieter stim but that might not work. It is really tricky!

I really don’t think you can manage the disability out of someone. For example my son wakes in the night and stims, this happens much more before he has a seizure. Are you suggesting he has to listen to social stories and be schooled out of what is obviously an uncontrollable part of his disability? Do you think it would work for other disabilities? You know, like a good firm social story and more discipline to get a blind person to make more effort to see?

My advice would be to do as much as you can to support sleep and accept that it won’t work all the time.

It’s very hard but you do need to look at strategies to prevent this behaviour, it’s not fair on anyone else in the household or neighbours. Look at social stories, talk to his medical team etc

OP your poor son shouldn't be getting shouted at for something he can't help! Your ex needs to get some proper earplugs. Do you have a social worker? You should be able to get a referral to psychiatry to discuss any medication that might help. Also, there should be a learning disability team (psychology/SALT/OT) who can look at a multidisciplinary approach to any behavioural issues such as poor sleeping and loud stimming.

Why doesn’t he do something if it’s him that it bothers so much and he listens to his dad. No wonder you are leaving him!

it’s so hard. I have a son almost the same age with the same diagnosis and tendency to stim loudly. It can be relentless and whilst I understand the frustration leading to anger when you are exhausted and need to rest for work, his dad needs to do better. Shouting will exacerbate the issue. Sometimes he does just need to stim it out as you have recognised. I wear ear bud type headphone to sleep every night - turned off - it takes the edge off so I can doze but can still hear in an emergency. ExDH currently has you there so he should get proper ear plugs and block it out totally giving you one less problem.

Others have mentioned detached house, we manage to move to one a couple of years ago so I now don’t worry about anyone else and that makes it so much less stressful. But it’s not always possible, especially when separating. When looking for a house I did look at semis too but only if there was a bedroom for DS on the far side from neighbours.

i don’t have many solutions - we have melatonin but it’s hit or miss. We’ve tried more exercise but same. You’re not alone.

it will be better when you can parent away from ex and the silver lining of separation is you will both have some time to catch up on rest. Hope you got some rest tonight eventually.