Self harming autistic 4 Yr old son

[Twace123]

My grandson has several problems including autism, non verbal, self harming, hyper all the time, he will only eat whatsits up to 8 bags a day, he sleeps for anything from 1 hrs to 6hrs and is predominantly up most nights and has lots of meltdowns which he will bite and kick his mum or he'll head butt anything that's near him and he'll punch himself in his face until she tries to hold him to carm him down. He enjoys lining things up eg cars, chairs,hoops etc he's at a special school for 5 hours a day who can't do anything with him, and she has has several conversations with doctors, special needs,and consultation with Sheffield children hospital who can't offer her any more help, because the sleep medication they gave him before, doesn't work now. Is there anyone on mumsnet who has a child with similar issues that could give us some areas where to try and find better solutions before he too strong for her. Thanks

I've not experienced anything like that sorry @Twace123. Have you found the SN Children Section yet? There are usually some experienced and helpful MNers in there

Hi, my 4 year old son is very similar. Things to look into
Gluten free/casein free diet
Heavy metal detox
Cbd oil ( start at 50mg and increase 5mg every 3 days until you get the right dose, going to high to quick can cause it not to work. The wee hemp company full spectrum 1000mg cbd oil and savage cabbage full spectrum oil are the 2 I've tried so far) also don't be afraid to go keep going higher until u find the right dose, it doesnt get them in anyway high x
Nemechek protocol ( your supposed to use inulin but some mums use a different prebiotic called HMO and find it helps there child to be calmer, recently started using this and the savage cabbage cbd at the same time and I do see a difference in his meltdowns xx) there are Facebook groups with more info x

Also heard a lot about how histame intolerance or histamine overload can cause severe meltdowns in asd kids (other signs can be dark circles under eyes, runny nose, hyperactivity) you can try giving antihistamines to see if they make a difference and if they do look into low histamine diet x

I'm really sorry they are going through this too, it really is a hard life to live😔 I will say my son was like this ALL the time this time last year, he was constantly covered in bruises. I cut out dairy and it helped him a lot, he still self harms a lot but not hard enough to have bruises most of the time and he has stopped literally finding the hardest or sharpenest surface he could find and headbanging it. He mostly slaps himself now which is obviously still really hard but better than the headbanging. He also can have a few good days/weeks now where as before it was constant and uncontrollable, now 70% of the time he can be comforted. Cutting out gluten hasn't made the same difference as cutting out the dairy although at that point the only dairy he was getting was cheese pizza (which apparently is high in histamines) he never used to react to dairy when he used to drink milk so really considering the histamine theory. I'm not going to lie and say doing these things has stopped the self harm/ harming others because it hasn't and we still constantly have bad moments (recently busted his lip from hitting himself so hard)but it has definitely improved them, wishing all of you all the best xx

Thankyou, I'll pass it on to my daughter, I know she's tried cbd oil, but that never work, but he will only eat watsits and drink orange squash, he used to eat quite a few things, but as he started getting older he won't even put something near his mouth, he doesn't even eat sweets or chocolate or fruit it is purely the watsits. The hospital give her antihistamine for him but even that never helped, all she gets told is he needs to see a specialist for that level of care but nobody up the hospital seems to know of anyone!!
That's why I posted on here to see if anyone had similar experiences, some days/nights she only gets 2hrs sleep. I'm 250 mls away from her so I can't really help.

I tried CBD oil last year with no success but also didn't know much about what I was doing. This time I have had a bit more success by buying the right kind of brands, right dosing etc

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpa4a/?ref=share this group has a lot of information about doing cbd the right way xx

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheNPInternationalSupportGroup/?ref=share nemechek protocol group x

https://www.facebook.com/groups/961268601923599/?ref=share using hmo group x

Also it sounds like he might have afrid, not sure if you have heard of it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/750366323096859/?ref=share pbx (heavy metal detox group)

Thankyou I've passed them on to her, anything is better than nothing to try and help him.

I agree that it does sound like it could be ARFID/Food Refusal Disorder.

Has anyone put your DD in touch with The Food Refusal Service?