Looking after SEN child and baby during lockdown

[crazydiamond222]

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice on managing the competing demands of a 5.5 month old who is very clingy and only naps on me and a school age child with severe learning disabilities (autism plus a genetic condition which gives high anxiety and sensory seeking behaviour) who normally has one to one support to learn.

At the moment I feel my older child is very neglected and spends most of the day on his ipad becuase he gets very anxious if I try to do anything with him whilst the baby is on me in a sling or in the room making any noise. Whilst baby is sleeping on me I give the older child the ipad becuase otherwise he undertakes sensory seeking behaviour mainly chewing on books or toys, he will not play on his own.

Currently our day looks like this:
5am older child wakes up and made to stay in room until 6am
6am baby wakes up, has feed, plays on mat whilst older child has breakfast
7am baby has nap on me whilst older child on ipad
8am give baby his breakfast (just started weaning) clean up, get baby dressed
9am baby due another nap on me - older child still on ipad
10am we all go outside, trampoline for older child and walk for all of us
11.30am prepare lunch. Leave older child with his lunch and ipad whist I do another nap
12.30pm have my lunch, try to do some reading with older child whilst baby plays. Time in garden
2pm do another nap whilst older child on ipad
2.30pm Dad finishes work and does cooking with older child ( he is working 6am to 2.30pm during lockdown)
3.30pm I do some reading with older child whilst Dad has baby
4.30pm all have dinner and tidy up
6pm I put baby to bed whilst Dad plays with older child
7.30pm I put older child to bed and I go to bed becuase baby wakes a lot during night

I would say in total out of the 14 hours he is awake the older child has an ipad for 10 hours. Does anyone have any suggestions how I can reduce this?

If I could get baby to nap in his cot that would really help free up some time for my older child. Does anyone have any tips on this? Baby naps on me in a sling but will wake if I try to do something with my older child also the older child does not like me wearing baby in a sling when I am trying to do things with him. This is also the only time I have to myself as I go to bed and get up when the children do. I manage all the night wakings for the baby, Dad manages our older son at night who often wakes a couple of times too.

Um, well, yes, I do have the capacity to cope with being upset, as do many well-adjusted humans. You're being very strange. Was trying to be helpful and reassure OP not to feel guilty, but hopefully she can find the advice and support she needs in the Sleep section. I'll leave this now.

I don’t really have any advice, just empathy. I am finding my 5.5yo ASD child really hard work right now. We have a lot of hitting and aggression and I can’t seem to do anything to help him

Have you tried a swing for the baby to sleep in? Ds would only sleep on me and would wake the minute I tried to put him down. I bought a swing for him and now he has 2 2hour naps in it a day. He now sleeps much better now he isn't overtired.

Have you tried a swing for the baby to sleep in? Ds would only sleep on me and would wake the minute I tried to put him down. I bought a swing for him and now he has 2 2hour naps in it a day. He now sleeps much better now he isn't overtired.

Thanks all for your suggestions. I think I do either have to accept my son will be on the ipad for much of the day or I will need to get the baby to sleep alone. I don't mind allowing him to cry a bit but he very quickly gets very upset and I am not sure he will settle.

I have tried getting baby to sleep in the sling and then transferring to the cot but he always wakes up. Moonandme, what is the name of the swing you use? It might be worth a try.

Also do people think it might help to reduce the number of naps. I currently do a wake, feed, play routine and he gets tired 1.5 hours after waking so we tend to have 4 or 5 30-45 minute naps a day. He starts to get grumpy about 1.25 hours after waking so it will be tricky to extend.

I think part of the problem is that his night sleep is not great atm, since 4 months old he does an initial stretch from 7pm to 11ish and then wakes every 2 hours until 6am ish so is probably over tired much of the day. My husband has started putting him down awake at night but that has not helped his night sleep. We tried moving him to his own room a few nights ago too but that has not helped either and he ends up back in with me for the second half of the night. Does the 4 month sleep regression normally end on its own at some point?

Also I was wondering with sleep training is it best to work on a particular nap first or just try to sort them all at the same time?

Is your eldest verbal? What specifically is it about you holding baby that upsets him? I wouldn’t be making your youngest change / hiding him away to make your eldest feel better as it just masks the problem and eventually cause resentment for your younger child if it continues.

@grumpyhoonmain.
My eldest has limited language, mainly to request things but not conversational. My eldest is ok with me holding the baby if we are going for a walk but gets upset with the combination of me getting him to do things that he generally gets anxious about anyway and me holding the baby. If the baby cries or makes a sound he doesn't like my eldest will go out of the room. He is not agressive or even possive or jealous but has extremely high anxiety which is associated with his genetic condition.

sp. aggressive or possessive

For DN who has ASD having his own space (in each room) with sensory activities he could do (that weren’t screens) when things got bad was really helpful. He really likes colouring so there were little alcoves set up in each room with a book, colouring pens, ear defenders etc that were enclosed with play pen type equipment to ensure the younger kids couldn’t get in. The colouring helps his anxiety as it keeps DN in the moment - but could be anything really.

Just to add DN’s anxiety did improve slightly when his DP cut down on screen / phone time.

The problem is your baby hasn't learnt to self sooth and is reliant on you to do it for him. You need to help him learn to self sooth. You need to be firm and stick with it. It's going to be hard work but once you start you need to stick with it. All you do if you stop is teach the baby to scream longer till they get what they want.
Place the little one in their cot. Give them a nice blanket that perhaps you use when cuddling him so it has your smell. Have the room dark to help to produce melatonin. Do part of the bed time routine. But stick with it. It can take over a week to work. How do you put him up at night ? He can do it then so he can do it in the day.
If you can't face doing that which is understandable at the moment. Buy a vibrating or rocking chair which may be easier to transfer him too.
I feel for you. It's an incredibly hard time for you.

@grumpyhoonmain. Unfortunately I don't think that would work in our case. My son would just chew on the pens and books if left unsupervised without an ipad to occupy him. He does not colour, only mark make with support. He does have sensory toys around the house, an ikea ceiling swing, mini trampoline etc but they only occupy him for a couple of minutes.

@fuzzymoon. If we do this approach do you think we need to introduce it for all naps at once or could we start with just the morning ones which I think might be easier? Also would he need to be able to self settle during all night wakings, I do currently breastfeed him to sleep during 2 of his night wakings ( but not when he first goes down) becuase I think he is genuinely hungry then.

Sounds like you need to sleep train little one. I’d also cut down on naps where you can so they’re longer. 3 decent naps of at least an hour each will give you good amounts of time with older one. Check of some sleep training books on amazon. (I’m no expert)

Make sure you’re putting the baby down safely so they’re a getting used to be apart from you. Having plenty of floor and tummy time to wear themselves out. (They will sleep better for it) have you got a jumperoo? Handy to put baby in to play while you have time with older child. Make sure you’re putting them down to play. That will help with sleep too as they won’t be so attached.

Sleep deprivation is horrendous. Falling asleep on the breast or bottle is really hard to stop.

We sleep in a cycle. First non rem sleep. This is a deep unproductive sleep. If you wake in this you feel groggy , like you've not been asleep. It lasts about 1 1/2 hours ish.
Then you go into rem sleep. The dream sleep. This lasts about an hour / 2 hours.
We all then partially wake. Check our environment is the same. It's a safety instinct. If it's changed like you need the loo, partner snoring , your cold etc you'll wake up. If nothing has changed you'll go straight back to sleep and into non rem sleep and the cycle begins again.
If a child's environment changes they are very likely to wake at partial wakening stage. On the breast / bottle now not , in parents arms now in cot. Dummy in dummy fallen out. Light on now lights off. On sofa now in bed. Etc etc.
How a child goes to sleep they ideally need to stay that way to not wake up.
If you are used to calm on the breast, rocked etc. The brain has been conditioned to need that to calm. Therefore it's very hard not to settle without it.

I would look at shifting the whole day route back by 1 1/2-2hrs. If your dh is out 6-2.30 working, and bedtime starts at 6pm it means your spending 8.5 hrs alone, and only 3.5hrs with help. Move all mealtimes and naps back a bit. gradually if needed.
But I would aim for 7.30am onwards breakfast for everyone, 12.30-1pm lunch, and dinner more like 6pm. Bedtime 8-8.30pm.

That way you aren't starting day so early and dh can help entertain both children from 2.30-8.30 instead. He can then take eldest on a walk late afternoon or play in garden, help with dinner etc... Then maybe he will sleep more like to 6.6-30am, and you can encourage to stay in bedroom until 7am instead of 6an etc..

If baby will nap in pram, I would try that in house. Rock baby in pram to sleep, keeping you hands free.

Great idea about shifting the day back. Just act like you do when the clocks change

The problem with shifting the day is my older child. He wakes at 5am (and sometimes 4am) whatever we do, we have tried putting him to bed later and it does not help. He has blackout blinds and takes melatonin on prescription to help him sleep. He is noisy when he wakes, I am not sure the extent to which is disturbing the baby.

I'd be consistent with the new approach - doing something for one nap and then a different thing for another is just going to confuse matters. If you're consistent then within a few days it will become the routine whereas if you keep mixing it up, your baby will still be expecting to sleep in the sling not the cot. Around that age, we switched to naps in the cot at 9.30 and 1.30, for between 1hr-2hrs, and no naps after 4pm. Took a week or two of adjusting but made a world of difference and really helped with night time sleeps too. Course all babies are different and there are many ways you can read up on, but would have thought consistency is key to all.

The problem, as such, isn’t the baby! You need alternative activities for your older child. What toys does he enjoy? Or activities? That is what you should be working on. And please don’t feel you have to do anything different with a young baby to accommodate their older sibling. It’s getting the whole situation arse about face. The easiest solution for all of you is finding a way to keep your older child happy and / or occupied. It sounds like he really needs physical activities (hence the trampoline) so can you increase that?

Like i said earlier i also have 3 ASD child, few things ive done which she likes ice cubes, my daughter likes to chew ice cubes so put them in on a tray or in cup and she it keeps her occupied for a while, other sensory things like playdough, cornflour and water mixed together, im buying some jelly for her to play with. Its super hard and i can relate. If hes on his ipad for longer than usual i wouldn't worry to much , we r doing the best we can, im having tv on most of day. Its how im coping.