Question about DLA - night care

[BeefTomato]

I'm struggling through a DLA application for my DS who has autism, and I've reached the bit about help during the night. I know that the night starts when the adults go to bed, but when does it end?

I'm asking because my DS is a very early riser. He wakes up any time from 5-6am and we need to get up with him because he needs constant supervision, whereas we wouldn't need to be awake until 7am if he was asleep. Does that count as night care? I can't find the answer anywhere!

Yes @BeefTomato the morning especially that early will count.

How old is he? Age is also a big deciding factor.

For instance my ds is nearly 6, most Nt children at this age will be able to read in bed, play quietly in there bedroom, play on iPad in bed etc etc not needing direct in the same room supervision if waking at 4/5am, but obviously as you know we can't do that with our children and when they are up so are we. Obviously the older a child gets the less supervision an Nt child would need.

Ds used to be hell to settle at bedtime. But melatonin helped a lot with that, but not with the night waking or early rising unfortunately.

Does your dc take melatonin?

danni0509 he is four so would need keeping an eye on anyway, but his behaviour is dangerous and needs constant supervision so I hope that they will accept it on that basis. He's a nightmare at bedtime too but apparently that doesn't count as night care because it's before we go to sleep. I haven't thought about melatonin, does it make a big difference to settling?

Put your worst case scenario, ds can be up as early as 4:30 in the summer and is the same safety wise. We put that if he wakes in the night at any time (if unwell for example) he gets up and isn't safe to be left unattended and his earliest average wake up time (can be earlier if unwell).

@BeefTomato ds has had high rate care since 2yr old. X

Thanks for the info everyone, I have finished it. It was really hard work emotionally to do though, I was surprised by how difficult I found it to do!

Now I feel like this form contains more information about my family and especially my DS, than I would ever want to share with anybody. He also sounds really awful in it, when in fact he is a lovely little boy. I almost want to write "P.S. He's no trouble really, you would love him if you met him!"