What’s the most random thing you’ve done when you’re supposed to be going to bed ?

[nondrinker1985]

Sometimes i wonder why my brain works like this…I have an autistic daughter who is also PDA, I’m her main co-regulator. Today I could see that although she was upstairs she wasn’t ready for bed…then a window appeared for me to help her go to bed but for some reason I’d taken off the bath and shower seals and started scrubbing them with an old toothbrush, thankfully I managed to get her involved and she held the bath screen while I fixed the seal back on - but I always do this!

yesterday I started clearing out a drawer. A drawer of doom - we have several sadly!

last weekend I spent hours listing stuff on Vinted.

I’ve just ordered some crevice cleaning brushes and will get to work on the showers tomorrow (after netball for my eldest and the gym for myself) help me!

WTH is a co regulator? A parent? An employee?

Sounds like you’re also perhaps ND… adhd perhaps?

I have never felt compelled to clean, but I have occasionally gone out for a walk in the fields with a head torch after midnight, when we lived in the country.

Tbf I think most people only do random jobs like stripping seals on a spur of the moment.

i did my shower seals last month when I went to shower, which turned into deciding to clean the shower, which turned into stripping the seals when I remembered the Stanley knife i had next door (for doing the window seals the week before)....

The window seals which i only replaced because I tore them out to do a better paint job (and address the longstanding draughtyness)....

A paint job that i only started because i happened to be in B&Q for something else and saw a colour i liked, which led to an evening of edge painting, followed by more painting and then a rage paint of touching up white paint... which of course escalated to all the white bits of the house, including the windows with the draughty seals.

And you can't paint without filler and sanding paper(!), so yes, I often have these things lying around and a two minute planned job turns into a 5 hour rampage and because the tools are nearby, yes, I often pick them up to do a quick task on my way to the loo or to get laundry out.

My advice is stick on a podcast and accept that it's your body telling you what you need: a mindless task (ideally with a podcast)

It’s in the word

Co-regulation is when you help someone else calm down by staying calm yourself. You’re essentially lending them your steadiness until they can settle.

It’s especially relevant with children, who don’t yet have the skills to regulate big emotions on their own. By using a calm voice, relaxed body language, and predictable, reassuring responses, the more regulated person (often a parent or carer) helps the other move from distress back to balance.

Over time, repeated co-regulation is how children learn self-regulation.

Could see myself doing this - in summer I have sometimes said I’m off for a walk like 730 and two hours later I’m still walking around!

Getting someone in to re-do the sealant 😂

Have you already had a go 🤭

If not you def should. Sorry, being a a little devil there by encouraging you! 😈

Ripped out the carpet in my hall landing and stairs.

kids were very confused in the morning!

I have ocd. Sometimes I want to have an early night, but my brain has other ideas. I have sorted my sewing pins by colour, scrubbed my kitchen taps, counted my socks, patrolled the stairs looking for spiders or beasties, and spent way too many hours watching the smart meter. I've come to the conclusion that my brain is a dick

Oh me ,that is a lot to contend with the sorting of the pins is a whole new level of a must do.
Must be a difficult condition to live with.

Bedtime is danger time here.

I often perm my lashes when I should be getting into bed (takes 45-60 mins). Vacuuming.

I’ve plastered a ceiling, taken the tiles off a bathroom wall, decluttered a wardrobe/under beds on several occasions when I’ve said good night to DH…… he will often find me, hours later, knee deep in something mad.

Usually order stuff online
Make appointments - could have done it earlier
Sent emails
All while lying in bed when I should be trying to have better sleep patterns.

I’ve just done my tax return!

So would you say parents of a toddler prone to tantrums are co-regulators? It's a term I've never heard before.

@Lifestooshort71yes - Young children don’t have the brain development to calm themselves, so parents stay calm and help them settle. Autistic children often need that support for longer hence my 11 year old has learnt some self regulation tools but she still needs me, especially at night when the demand of sleep affects her nervous system. So we have a very defined bedtime routine - except when of course I end up doing random jobs! But that can often form part of the Co-regulation as in the task becomes a distraction from having to sleep and then when we get into the bedtime routine it feels less pressured.

PS I’m looking forward to finishing the seals today!!

It can be hard, but I can laugh at it sometimes.

All the time.

Things Ive done this past month -

1. Online purchases of loads of jumpers (my latest obsession)
2. Online purchases of new furniture
3. Practicing make up after following make up tutorials.
4. Doing curly girl hair routines I saw online
5. Moving furniture about and completely blitzing and changing a room around
6. stenciling the back room.

I have ADHD and autism, and I also am a bit flush this month (not anymore!!!) so ive gone a bit more mental than usual. I also have more work on - and this seems to have create a spiral where Ive become obsessed with massively clearning out my house, reorganising, tidying, and buying new stuff and getting rid of old stuff. In the past month I have achieved sooooo much - bags and bags of crap donated, and place looks amazing. But im completely nackered and often doing random stuff past midnight.

Its like my brain went 'you have sooooo much work on, what you need to do to manage this is do even more things late into the night'. lol. However, I do now have a very ordered smarter looking home with everything in its place now (it won't last), so maybe there was some method to my madness.