Reception auties 2018/19 - thread 2

[openupmyeagereyes]

Thanks to LightTripper for the thread title. This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of dc with autism in their reception year at school. Please join us if you can or, if you have dc due to start reception in 2019, feel free to drop by and ask us questions.

Thread 1

Open, it's the music on Blippi which does my head in!

Oh God. I can’t say I’ve noticed the music yet but now I will. I usually try and keep the volume on the iPad very low! I still often get some minions song in my head that he went through a phase of watching. I assume it’s from the film which I haven’t seen.

I’m glad ds went down ok. Enjoy the G&T.

Sorry that happened to you and ds Dimples. Hope the G&T made the evening a bit better.

Glad you've managed to get ds out of the house Open.

Sounds like the potty training is going pretty well danni.

We had a pretty up and down day yesterday. Quite a few meltdowns and ds is taking ages to go to sleep in the evening. Looking forward to next week when we can go to the in-laws for the long weekend!

liv hopefully he settles down in a day or two and gets used to the change in routine. It will be nice to have a change of scene - and some help/childcare? - next week.

Ds is also taking longer to go to sleep at the moment. The last two nights have been ok as he’s been really tired but otherwise it’s been stretching to half an hour of thrashing around and messing about whereas he used to fall asleep so quickly being so tired from his early starts. I know this is not bad compared to some dc but it’s tedious at 8pm when I’m lying on his bedroom floor waiting for him to drop off.

We’re going to the coast for a week in a few days. Hopefully the sea air will knock him out! Thankfully he loves going away (though not always leaving when it’s time to go home...) so he should enjoy it. Always so nice to have dh off too.

Jealous of your trip to the coast open, sounds lovely.

He's been a bit better today, literally watching musicals and nursery rhymes on repeat though!

I think for us it's a combination of school holidays (so she's less tired) and clocks going forward. So she's come back downstairs after bed every night since I think (or nearly). She's basically falling asleep more like 9.30 than 8.30. Hoping it will gradually move back once she gets back to school if not before...

We are off on holiday on Friday (various UK stops)... Anyone else going away? Are you in a hotel or self catering open?

liv sometimes you do whatever it takes!

Light we’re self catering in a cottage. We’ve done this since ds was born and with his restricted eating I’m not sure anything else is an option at the moment. He loves having space to run about and a garden too though we always have to get one that has an enclosed garden. Hopefully the weather will be ok, we’ve been quite lucky so far on our U.K. holidays.

We're going away for one night - Chester zoo and the hotel has a swimming pool so he'll love that.

DS is so tired though. My Mum looked after him yesterday and he took himself off to bed for a nap.

DS is actually sleeping really well at the mo - still asleep now. But I have birds nesting in the gutters outside my bedroom window and they wake me up v early

Ugh, dimples, what a pain. Great your ds is sleeping well. I still live in hope...

We always do self-catering too. I love having our own space (also great for evenings so we can have a glass of wine etc. with kids in bed). I think we probably would do that even if DD was NT but it definitely works well for us now. Friends always tell me hotels are more relaxing but I don't really get it ... must be missing something!

Zoo sounds amazing! One of DD's friends is staying at Whipsnade for her birthday and DD is going to join her for the day afterwards ... I had no idea before that you could actually stay at zoos!

Glad DS is sleeping well dimples, even if you're not ... hopefully it means was cheery when he woke up at least!

I like having more space rather than being cramped up in a hotel room with suitcases and stuff everywhere but obviously someone has to cook. We tend to just have convenience, or very easy to cook, food for the week - pizza, pasta etc. You never have all the ingredients that you need for cooking properly.

Off to soft play again today to meet a friend. I’m sure Blippi will make an appearance

Is anyone managing to get any school work/practice done? I admit I haven’t tried very hard despite my good intentions but I have been rebuffed when I have tried. Must get myself organised, especially since he missed a week of term.

Ds is being super good at the moment, he’s being great about leaving places even when he doesn’t really want to. This has been a big trigger in the past. Yesterday we were at my niece’s house, she has bg twins a couple of years older than him and he loves playing with them. They played for quite a while on the trampoline together and he had such fun. He didn’t want to leave when it was time but I told him that he’d be able to come back again and he left calmly. There are times I’ve had to go in and physically remove him from that trampoline and deal with the tantrum afterwards!

We haven't done any school work, I also haven't tried really. We have been encouraging counting, letter recognition etc but only as part of his play.

His TA gave us loads of fun things to do though so I might try and see if my in-laws can have a go with him. Might be easier in a different environment.

That's great open. I'm noticing similar with ds. I don't feel quite as anxious about going to the park as I used to because he seems more likely to process the information I'm giving him!

We haven't done much. School sent back 7 reading books and we've done 2, so taking the rest away with us. DD is very into writing at the moment so we're not really having to push, just trying to use that to point out if a letter is the wrong way round, or start to try to teach her some spellings (all of which she finds HILARIOUS - you don't realise quite how crazy English spellings are until you start trying to explain them to somebody!). DD is also still really anxious about Spanish classes so we've started watching some YouTube videos with different coloured balls and trains and stuff and saying the colours in Spanish, which she loves. I've got a Spanish workbook to see if we can get her a bit more familiar with it (I'm hoping the class will be a bit less overwhelming if the content is familiar) but I suspect that will not be nearly as motivating as a lovely rainbow coloured YouTube video!

Last day at work today ... cannot wait to get away! So tired. DD and DS both seem totally hyper the last few days, so I'm hoping we all find it relaxing and a bit of a chance to re-regulate!

Light enjoy your time off. Hopefully you can all recharge a bit. Great idea to help dd become more familiar with Spanish, it should help when she goes back.

liv that’s probably the best way to do it tbh. Ds has at least been watching Numberblocks and Alphablocks on CBeebies. Does that count?

I bought the Julia Donaldson phonics books from Book People so am planning on taking those away with us, the first two levels anyway and will take a few workbooks too.

@danni0509 how is the toilet training going? My fingers are crossed for you!

SALT is coming later. I’d better clean up the mess of toys on the floor.

Hope your last day is good light. Hope you have a well deserved break!

It definitely counts open!

Open we have those too, from the book people. Great minds! I got them for £15 in the end & paid the extra for delivery, I used a 20% off coupon. We have the ORT biff and kipper set too but i prefer the Julia Donaldson ones.

Ds can read some of the words in the books such as a few of the tricky words and he can blend a bit but it's getting him co operating to do it which is the problem. We usually try to do a book or two before bed every night.

You make me laugh as you sound just like me with the twinkl subscription & the amazon lol

X

Hope everyone has a nice Easter break where ever they are going. X

Potty training day 6...

Ds is doing fab, bless him.

He's only had a small few drops in his undies today & it was more of an initial dribble before I got him to the toilet. He's also asked for the toilet a couple of times.

We are away for a few days too so have been out all day but making sure I find a toilet every hour.

He seems to be able to hold it slightly longer than he did too.

I keep thinking.... 5 years of ds doing his business in a nappy whenever he needs to is going to take a lot of work to undo.

I don't expect miracles straight away but he's off to a good start and by god it's an improvement on last years attempts. Won't give up this time, I had no choice on previous attempts but he seems to be grasping things this time. X

Just popping back to say hi, don't get much time to post

My ds is dry in the days now dani, but he still poos in pull ups most times. We are not talking to him about pooing on the toilet, we just try to get him sitting for longer with a book in the hope it will happen. We have had a few successes this way, but he tends to hold it until the pull up goes on for bed time then poos.

Openupmyeagereyes have you looked at the Duolingo app for Spanish? Also Little Pim which is a cartoon language series for young children.

That was to Light sorry!

danni it sounds like he’s doing fabulously, you must be so proud.

You too 123bananas.

We really like the Songbirds books too. DS has been reading to me every morning and practising his line for his Easter performance. I had wanted us to do more mark making.

We had a day out with his twin autistic cousins today. We made it 2/3 of the way up the lighthouse tower and DS announced he needed a wee. My niece and nephew were v good about going back down. However, my nephew then became trapped in the toilet cubicle and my niece became very upset that she would never see her brother again. Fortunately my nephew calmed down sufficiently enough to listen to my instructions. Peace was restored for 2 seconds and then DS who was merrily skipping back to the tower tripped. A member of staff insisted that we complete an incident log with her - by this point I had three crying children....fortunately we made it to the top of the lighthouse and then flew kites on the beach. When I took the twins home they all asked if we could do the same tomorrow- it was with deep regret that I had to decline as DS has a hospital appointment!

Oh I will look those up 123 bananas thank you!

danni sounds like great progress on the toilet training! The fact he can actually tell he needs to go and ask seems like a major breakthrough? I'm sure there will be wobbles but sounds like great progress.

I've always been much less bothered by nighttime nappies (which is probably why DD just one day said she didn't want to wear one and was dry within a couple of weeks!) They weren't a great couple of weeks, but I think they just kind of know when they are ready. And it's really not an issue for them to keep wearing nappies at night until quite old (except the problem of getting big enough ones!) I can imagine other kids getting mean if they were still doing it on sleepovers or school residential trips etc. but that's not for aaaaggggeeees yet I hope!

dimples that all sounds incredibly stressful. I hope the kite flying made up for it, and I hope the rest of your day involved cake or wine (or both)!