Hi everyone
DS has been co sleeping with me for nearly a year now. He has Verbal Dyspraxia and ASD and is 4. Before about sept last year he was a good sleeper once he was asleep but I had to lie down with him in his bed to get him off to sleep. Then he started waking in the night and I had to go and resettle him, lying in his bed with him until he was asleep, before sneaking out back to my bed, which was getting exhausting as he was waking at least once a night. Once, soon after the nighttime waking started, I tried talking to him about how mum needed to sleep in her own bed with dad but he got incredibly distressed. At that stage he couldn't communicate at all verbally (due to his problems with speech production) and it was impossible to establish why he was so upset. So I'm sure you can guess what happened next, I let him sleep in our bed one night and now it happens all the time- every night without fail. DH can't sleep well with DS in the bed so has been in the spare room since the co sleeping became a regular occurence. Sometimes DS comes through at 3am, sometimes at 11pm, I guess whenever he first wakes up. Most nights he sleeps really well in my bed, he comes through, snuggles up and drops straight to sleep, but occasionally he gets distressed as if he has bad dreams. I would really like the co sleeping to stop and for my husband to return to the marital bed (!) but I haven't been able to face trying to address it (I'm very soft and close to DS and part of me thinks if this is a way to help DS and help him feel more secure, is it such a bad thing?). But I think now may be a good time to try to stop it while it's summer and before DS starts school in sept. One positive thing is DS now can go to sleep by himself in his own room, we have a well established bed time routine where I read him 3 stories, have a quick cuddle adn then leave.
Has anyone got any ideas of how to try to change such a ingrained routine of coming through to sleep with mum once he wakes in the night? Might a social story be the way forward? DS, although autistic, has normal receptive language for his age and does respond well to social stories and picture books which we use to explain and prepare him for holidays, starting school etc.
Thanks in advance for any ideas!