Aspergers - panics at bedtime

[chrissola]

My nine year old son has been diagnosed with Aspergers a year ago. He has suffered anxiety and mild self harm in the form of picking fingers until they bleed. He is obsessibe - currently with Minecraft. My main problem is a recurring one which was solved by him taking Melatonin until recently. He goes to bed at around 8.30pm, reads until 9pm and then calls from top of stairs intermittently for the next hour saying he 'has the feeling', which he says feels like his heart beating too fast. Think it's anxiety. The melatonin doesn't seem to be working anymore and I am exhausted.
I have to be at work at 8am and don't get any downtime. Any help would be much appreciated.

I remember having a 'feeling' mid evening at about the same age. Settled routine, read in bed, tried to sleep, got the 'feeling'. What I was most worried about was not being able to fall asleep and being left awake all night alone with everyone else tucked up in their beds. I was happier once I got my DPs to promise they would 'check on me' and wouldn't go to bed if I was awake. To be honest, nothing but time cured it and I now know the 'feeling' to be adrenalin-y and in my case an anxious feeling.

I hope you get him to settle soon. Lots or reassurance can't harm.

I sympathise. We went through hell with ds1. He went through a stage where is OCD tendencies took over our nights, he had to open & close his door and drawers a certain number of times. Check all his lego structures were exactly aligned etc before he could sleep. Every time he got up to the toilet (which was a lot as he had a fear of wetting the bed) the procedure was repeated. The sleep deprivation was worse than the first few weeks with the twins.

As pp said it improved with time, melatonin didn't work for us. We did have lots of long chats about his concerns, in his instance its because he hates to dream and would fear falling asleep. For him he needed to examine that fear, to acknowledge that even though he had no control over them the majority of his dreams were quite nice.

I'm not sure what changed really, he just slowly improved. I do know that before admitting that it wasn't working the dr increased the melatonin level - would that be an option?

Thank you Aspiemum2, I shall talk to his consultant about increasing the Melatonin at his next appointment.

Also, very interesting to hear from Homebird8 as somebody who has had 'the feeling'. Hope he grows out of it soon. Try to reassure. All just exhausting. He is also only just dry at night after taking detrusitol and desmopressin for years.