Hey. Sorry to hear this, it sounds upsetting. My DD is 6 and has autism. She’s also been going into hand washing overdrive the last couple of weeks. I was on here looking for help with exactly that. It’s hard right now to find the time to be your child’s parent, teacher, playmate, therapist, cook and cleaner, so the list coming up is a bunch of ideas but I definitely haven’t used them all! So here are some things which might help, and it’s as much for me as for you :)
Learning a bit about microbes and good bacteria, about immunity and good dirt and how it builds from SOME amount of germ exposure.
Good mess / happy sensory. DD hates finger painting and messy hands but she makes an exception for chocolate. This could be like exposure therapy, good practice for building tolerance of dirt? Breaking up chocolate biscuits for a cheesecake base and getting crumby hands. Melting chocolate to make edible finger painting on plain biscuits or on slices of fruit.
Teaching a song to sing while hand washing and reassuring that at the end of the song, the germs are gone. This is our trouble - she’s washing for a minute or longer and is very distressed if I ask her to stop before she feels ready.
Getting to the heart of the worries by drawing the worries or writing about them, whispering them to a toy or getting toys to act them out for you.
Doing some physical recharging stuff - trampoline jumping, bashing a cushion, running laps around garden if you have one, tackling you to the ground, getting squashed tightly under pillows or in a rolled blanket.
Bonding time to help him feel safe. Let him take control and make choices. Indulge his favourite games for as long as you can tolerate to “top up” his levels.
It’s not easy and you have my sympathies. Hopefully something will help soon, but such a massive change in routine and loss of excitement and joy in life is a hard thing for small kids, especially with additional needs xx