We've been told our 3yo son almost certainly has ASD (in the process of assessment after a paediatrician picked up on it at an appointment a few months ago).
We're going through a really odd phase at the moment, and I don't know if it's an ASD thing or not, or how I should be handling it.
He's my first child, so I find it hard to know whats normal.
About a month ago he got really clingy all of a sudden and started talking about me disappearing. Apparently someone told him I was going to disappear (?) but he refuses to say who.
It's been getting steadily worse and worse, to the point that it now takes him 3 or 4 hours to go to sleep because he has to keep checking I didn't leave the house whilst he was in his bed. He is exhausted. We both are.
I can't even go to the loo without him panicking that I've disappeared. He follows me everywhere.
He loves playing out on the field with his daddy, but refuses to go outside now without me in case I disappear whilst he isn't home.
What can I do? Is this just a phase he will grow out of? It's getting worse and worse and I'm swinging between frustrated and heartbroken. Neither of us gets any sleep because he wakes up screaming every couple of hours until I go and tell him I'm still here.
He used to sleep really well, it's only since the disappearing thing that he has started waking up. 