Night waking dd with autism - any top tips - please....

[seaweed74]

Dd1 woke at 3.30am and we're now properly "up" in the lounge as mentally I find this better to deal with than lying in bed knowing it could be several hours before she'll finally goto sleep again (twice there has been no further sleep!).

Dd1 has autism and is 3. Up till now I've kinda hoped sleep problems are age/development related but think probably more autism related. She does sleep through sometimes in her own bed, sometimes wakes and comes in with me going straight back to sleep, and sometimes it takes 2/3 hours for her to sleep again. Twice we've been up since 2.30am till following evening . Dd1 goes to bed no problem and self settles at home. When away (as now) me or Dp lie next to her till she falls asleep.

Anyone got any tips that might help?

PS Dd2 is only 5 months and still wakes minimum 3 times a night to feed. All sleep is very precious [busmile].

Ooh... Another one here.. DS1 is 2.9 and has sleep issues and ds2 is 5 months old, so I know what you mean. We have been speaking to a sleep councillor from the charity Cerebra and she has been very helpful. I have got to feed the little one now but will dig up what she recommended tomorrow and post back here..

We have that too, but he is the youngest of four. We were told to reintroduce afternoon naps, but they were not a success as he was 4 by then. So I tried melatonin but it altered his behaviour, so we stopped. Then I remembered reading something about a chiropractor who helped kids with sleep issues. We took him along and discovered that yes he had vertebrae out of alignment, so they were put back into place. He slept and slept and slept. All was great for about two months, then he started waking up again. I find that it's the worst thing I can do is to go into him too late and then he's wide awake.

Much worse for you with a wee one to feed.

Sallybear - Dp agrees it's key to get to dd1 before she's too awake and he reckons that certain times are the worst for waking and not going back to sleep. He might be right . This time baby woke her coming in for feed as we're sharing a room at family's place.

Dd1 is now asleep. I got 30min nap! Dd2 doesn't understand that mummy's tired.

Dev - had a look at cerebra's website. Going to keep sleep diary and give them a ring next week.

Oh good, Cerebra are very good. We were allocated a woman who is always on the end of the phone,text email etc and she even came down to visit us at home to discuss everything in detail and overall been very helpful. That home visit really helped because she was able to advise us about how to break down the little habits which ds had built up over time which made sleep time very complicated.

This is an old thread where there is some useful advice by blueshark.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/1397981-Views-on-millpond

I'm sorry to say dd1 took till 6 until she slept all night!
Dd2 still doesnt

One thing that worked with dd1 was to have a light of some sort on a timer plug. She knew if when she woke the light was still on to stay in bed, when it was off (started at5am, then 5.30 then 6am ect) she could get up. This worked well for her as she had the understanding and was very rule lead. It hasn't worked for her sister

We did a sleep clinic for ds3. We discovered that he had massive sleep association issues. He always went to bed with a dummy a drink and his tv on. Dh would always go in and move his drink and switch the tv off. They discovered that as ds would lose his dummy, or try and find his drink in the night, he would wake but as he couldn't see to find them he would get up, switch the the light on and find them thus waking up fully. We already had a dimmer switch on his room so we now leave that on low and he is great. I still have to remind dh not to go in and move his drink though! DS just doesn't do dark! He will still wake up now and then but on the whole he is so much better.

Lisa idea is good, you can get these too very simple idea but very visual.

Or this is even simpler.

Lenin you should ask for Circadin. Its a slow release melatonin in tablet form. The idea being that it keeps them asleep, but they have to go off to sleep as normal and then it helps prevent them waking up.

Thanks for all your replies.

The clocks are a good idea but not sure if dd1 would understand the concept just yet as she's developmentally delayed as result of the autism. Although, she is making good progress with her communication skills so this might well be an option later in the year. We only got our dx 2 months ago.

Seaweed. We took the most expensive option and built a loft conversion to give each of our four kids their own rooms. It's been the best thing we could have done as DS2 & 3 shared a room before. Peace at last.