Hey guys?
I’m seeking a bit of advice about something, It will be a long essay to describe what is going on. It’s really strange situation but I’m just at my wits end with it all.
Bit of a background my son is now 3 and half years old, he is a non verbal autistic. He always had trouble sleeping through the night but this is something else.
He had his own bedroom since he was around year and half old. A lot of times during the night when he was awake he would focus on one particular location in his room. He didn’t show distress or fear. He even waved to it several times or laugh out loud in the direction. He would stare at the spot for hours. We tried re arranging furniture etc but he always stared at a new spot after that. And it was always the same spot. Freaky right.
We moved into a new house about a month ago, the first night just before going to sleep my son was looking into the spare bedroom (door was slightly open, light on) from across the corridor and flipped. He started screaming like something scared him really bad. I thought it’s a new house, moving is hard for kids anyways. Pretty quickly he started staring at the random locations in the house. He would often laugh out loud like he was playing with someone, this happened at all times of the day and mainly in his bedroom and living room. Again I thought not much of it as he is a little boy, he might have an imaginary friend it’s common at that age etc. Then around two weeks ago he woke up in the middle of the night and was showing me something was by his toy cupboard. Now first few days his reaction was something is there like he did for months before in his old bedroom. As days went on he seemed to start becoming afraid of it to the point where he would be showing genuine fear forwards that corner, then it moved to his door as well a couple of days later. Untill a week ago, he woke up in the middle of the night and screamed. I mean bloody murder screaming I ran in into his room and he kept letting me know that there is something in the corner of his room. He was clearly terrified of it. Now his bedroom got a night light so there is no pitch black spots in there, when you in there at night you can clearly and easy make you what you see is furniture, toys etc. This went on for a couple of night. I started getting concerned as my son was very certain there is something there that he doesn’t want to see. Last night it’s reached the limit tho, he woke up screaming and the same thing he tells me something is by the cupboard. Now normally the previous nights when I layered down with him he would eventually calm down but that wasn’t the case. Everything he calmed down he looked somewhere else in the room and screamed. It went on for hours, it’s by the cupboard with the toys, it’s by his door, it’s by his bed etc. At one point he was dragging me out of bed screaming like there was something in the bed with us, he was shouting no no no, being non verbal when he does say ‘no’ that speaks million words. This went on for 5 hours last night. I can clearly see by his reaction that he is genuine terrified,and whatever he sees to him is real. We got a nanny cam in his room that I was watching all last night when it was all happening while I was there with him but again I couldn’t see anything.
I don’t know what to do. Do I let his paediatrician know what’s is going on? Moving rooms doesn’t help as when he slept in my bedroom the same thing happened. He isn’t terrified to go to sleep in his bedroom at bedtime or be upstairs during daytime etc it’s all happening from 12am onwards.
As I said I’m at my wits end and I don’t know what to do or how to help him. Because he doesn’t speak I’m not even able to know what he is seeing that’s scaring him so much. Has anybody got any suggestions what should I do?