How can I best support my autistic daughter through pregnancy?

[SmilingNana]

I have recently been told that I'm going to be a Nana by my Autistic 22yr old who is also out of work. I am absolutely over the moon but I am also worried about how I best advise her 🥺

Is it actually a good idea for her to have a baby? I know this is not what you want to hear but being a parent is not right for everybody and it sounds like this would be something she would really struggle with and thats not in the best interests of a child at all.

I know some people imagine all a child needs is love but thats such rubbish, they need capable parents able to support them fully and meet all their needs, able to care for them properly and put their childs needs above their own. Is your DD going to be able to do this?

She struggles to get up sometimes? If she’s living independently eventually how will she do this with the baby? This doesn’t seem fair on the unborn child.

My advice would be to find out if there’s a specialist midwife team at the hospital she is booked into. If not find one that has and transfer care.
preemptive referral to perinatal MH team.
You can also see a HV during pregnancy which may be helpful.

Obviously only you know her level of function and what she can/can’t manage. It’s perfectly possible with the right support that she will thrive as a parent.

There may be specialist parenting /antenatal courses that she can do.

I have personal experience of this situation so please feel free to dm me if you need to ask anything

It might be 'possible' that she will thrive as a parent but lets be realistic, is it likely

This is a childs life. Its so selfish to encourage this just because the OP would quite like to be a granny and her daughter wants a baby.

I don’t know the OP daughter’s specific situation but I do know of a lot of autistic parents who are fantastic and have happy healthy dc.

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP.

I have autism and I have three small children. It was an absolute shock when I had my first, and pregnancy was the worst and most horrific sensory experience of my life. I cried everyday with the first one and I feel sorry for my husband. Once she was here I was a lot better but I really really struggled with the sleep disturbances and a couple of times had absolutely meltdowns* where it wasn’t just the baby crying but also me. I am very very lucky I have a good husband who married me knowing that I was autistic and he was fully aware of the severity of it. Honestly with 2 and 3, it wasn’t as bad at all because I knew what I was up against and I could mentally prepare, in fact I would say pregnancy number 2 was actually alright, maybe even quiet nice.

Now we have a pretty good routine, obviously kids throw curve balls but I do mornings, DH does evenings, we do park on Wednesday after school and do sandwiches for dinner, they go to my dads Saturday or Sunday to hang out and sometimes sleep over with grandad. All good. But it wasn’t always like that. Sometimes I still get overwhelmed and freak out and that’s when my husband takes over. If it wasn’t for him I would have a breakdown.

Also, she needs to be aware that her child may have serious learning difficulties, they may well be autistic and their autism might not present like hers. My son is autistic and to be honest he’s pretty similar to me as a child so I feel pretty well equipped to do deal with him, a lot of the time I’m better at dealing with him than his dad, but that could have been totally different. How do you think she would cope with a non verbal child? One who needs nappies into adulthood? There’s a lot to consider and I don’t think autistic people can’t be parents, I just think we need different training and different information than most non autistic parents.

*when I say meltdowns I mean autistic meltdowns not just normal crying because your baby wouldn’t go to sleep I feel like I should clarify that.

Good luck, you are going to need it

For every autistic child there is more than likely an autistic parent so with the right support there is no reason this situation would turn out badly.

Small chance that your dd will step up to the challenge and a much bigger chance that it will be you raising the baby. ND or not ND, you have described someone who should not be having a baby now.

From what you have described, it sounds likely that you will do a lot of the parenting for your grandchild.

I can see why her boyfriends parents are concerned.

It’s not the 90s/early 2000s we can’t force a woman to have an abortion if she has a disability. That’s the reality here - that happened in the past and it’s horrific.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am an autistic mother. However my children are small and I am late 30s. I would have massively struggled to have a child at her young age and that’s related to the autism. I also struggled to get out of bed and at her age I found my first job. Is she volunteering anywhere to gain experience? Museums are always happy to have volunteers and they give a range of experience. Any first time mother has a lot of growing up to do in my opinion, it’s a huge learning curve. Is she looking after herself during her pregnancy?

This person should not be having a baby, and you will end up being the baby’s mother.

Plenty of autistic people have kids. However the way you describe your daughter doesn’t bode well for motherhood. She struggles to get up and struggles to do things for herself? But having a baby is a good idea? Op, you are going to end up being this child’s mother if your daughter insists on having it.
She and the bf need to get their own place and crack on if they want to go down this route. If you let her stay with you, be prepared to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

You say she wants other people to do everything for her but then say she won't depend on you as much as others perceive, it can't be both of those things.
If she can't look after herself she really can't and shouldn't try to look after a baby.

I know you want to support her, but the best support you can give her is to help her figure out how to do things herself, NOT do it for her. Doing it for her is not helping, its hurting. And you need to think about what lessons a child might learn from that. She needs supporting figuring out how to manage and do things for herself. Is her partner also autistic?

She can barely look after herself. How is she going to look after an infant, work to support it, put a roof over its head and food in its stomach. Oh wait, mum and dad will take over while she stays in bed.
Be realistic OP with her, unless you fancy rolling the clock back 22 years and starting again at your age.

This is really difficult. I’m autistic and now in my 50s with 4 adult children. I loved being a mum (still do!) and had my first at 24.

But your daughter doesn’t sound like she has found coping strategies for herself yet, not getting out of bed at times, unable to find a job (will be much harder pregnant), not living independently.

Im currently going through a MH crisis which are more common in autistic people. I am very grateful my children are grown up as I would not have the capacity to parent them at the moment.

I think you should all be very realistic about the future.

Congratulations?! On what? The daughter can barely take care of herself, even living under OP’s roof. Now she’s having a baby she won’t be able to care for by herself and OP will be landed with having to do it. Of all the emotions to share, sympathy and concern seem more appropriate than congratulations.

Lets face it if she struggles to look after herself she is also going to struggle to look after a baby. You need to think long and hard about who is going to do this, and pay for it. Not sure how you are over the moon about this. I would be worried sick.

What is WRONG with all of you people replying on this thread? You are nearly all being so unremittingly negative.

OP has asked for help. She is trying to look for positives. She is absolutely not blind to how hard this may be, but she is trying to prepare, trying to support her dd.

People have kids in awful situations, here there is nanny and grandad and a dad who hasn’t yet lost interest. Mum needs help; mum is going to find it hard.

There’s no reason to pile in and make the OP feel worse.

@Cioccoholic agree with you. It’s a horses bolted situation. I think op needs to look at external support and help from the get go and not labour under any illusion she’s not going to be massively impacted. She’s basically going to end up feeling responsible for another child but won’t really have any proper say in what happens to it.

My parents were shockingly bad parents and my nan pretty much raised me. News flash, that was the very best part of my life and it in no way makes up for my mothers failure to safeguard me or to be able to recognise men that wanted to exploit her in order to abuse me. My nan was ALWAYS there but she wasn’t my mum and my mum was the one who was (wrongly) in charge of me and got to decide who I did and didn’t see etc. my mum is very clearly neuro divergent , as is my dad and I have huge trauma and inherited conditions from both of them. My life has had happy points and even a few truly joyous ones but it’s been a brutal and emotional battle almost every second of my life. I was raised by parents who couldn’t regulate their own feelings or emotions, projected their failings onto me yet expected me to succeed where they failed despite them not even ever beginning to teach me how, didn’t look after us properly at all and I am still paying that cost to this day as a 46 yo woman. And now I’m helping in raising grandchildren although I’m very glad to say that I did a much better job raising my children than my parents did with me. Is not mean to point of the reality of being raised by untreated nd parents who can’t cope with their own lives never mind bringing a child into it.

Because some of us were raised by woefully inadequate parents who were unable to look after themselves, and should certainly not have had children, and we live with the scars. The important thing here is not making the OP feel better, it's making her take seriously the fact that her daughter is in no current state to be a parent, and that this way untold damage lies for her future child, even if the OP steps in and does much of the practical parenting as best she can.

It may be that her daughter will be able to have a child she can parent properly in future, but that time is clearly not now.