How to cope

[Lovelyboys]

Hi,
Have found about ds1 (born 24 weeks)GDD ASD in october and had Ds2 in november(born 27 weeks), he came home last friday from special care and have realised maybe he is might be at high of austism, tough i am busy with both of them, but still the thought of not having a normal 2 year old bothers me, maybe because he is still not showing any positive changes sinse we started ABA, ds1 is not really fussed about ds2 as he is mostly in his own world, but he surely notices him and gets slightly quite and sits in a corner when he cries(ds2 is very noisy) i am sure my neighbour will come and knock at my door soon to calm him down, i know that i am being very paranoid, i keep talking my dh about everything in my mind but it still does not seem to help, i am fine when he is home but when he goes to work i am again stressed about every little thing, seems like something had just shaken my little world sinse the day we heard about his dx in october, any ideas about how should i cope before i see any change in my ds1?
Thanks

Hi lovelyboys. It's hard to know what will work for you, but I coped by living in the present, only looking ahead to the next major obstacle or milestone and trying not to think too far forward. I did whatever I felt capable of to help my DS2, but recognised that I also had DS3 to take care of and I forgave myself for not being superwoman! Your DSs, both of them, have a mother who loves them and who will do her best. My DS2 ignored DS3 for the first 9 months or so, until he could crawl and interfere. They now have a pretty normal sibling relationship of fighting and getting up to mischief together. Hope that helps.

Thanks Ellen, it always helps, can't stop thinking about his future every time I see him.

Something that helped me with concerns for the future was when someone told me that I didn't actually know what the future held, I thought I did, but I didn't.

Also I'm not sure whether this will help but ds1 (now 12) is in many what we thought would be our worst nightmare when he was 2. He's non-verbal, severely autistic, at an SLD school etc etc. But he actually has a great life! He surfs, he communicates and I wish in many ways I hadn't worried so much about the future when he was little. We were so focussed on therapies and progress etc when he was small that we often forgot to have fun and just live life.

There have been two things that have had the most impact on his life (1) communication - this has been achieved in various ways, PECS, now a talker, Makaton and also just making up our own ways to communicate and (2) surfing which has just completely changed his life.

He has 2 brothers - both NT - although of course they were at high risk for autism as well.

Thanks saintlyjimjams and zzz you have helped a lot... I do understand, I will also try to live in present and not think about future...

I think sleepless nights is getting to me more than anything..