How did your autistic child sleep when they were an infant? ?

[Lunardreams]

My 9 m/o sons sleep has been very poor since birth. He seems to cat nap during the day and fights most of his naps. He wakens frequently overnight and needs a lot of comfort (being held tight, white noise, haur being stroked) to fall asleep both day and night.

There are other little things I am noticing however can be appropriate developmentally given his age so will wait to see if he grows out of them.

I ask as I'm an autisic person and so I know my son may have a slightly higher chance of being autisic.

I am in no way saying he is or is not autisic. Hes an awesome little guy and will love him no matter him being NT or ND. I just want to keep an eye on his development to support him with his strengths and difficulties whither he is NT or ND.

As a baby my little one slept fairy well. He was an early riser but slept for long spells at night. At around 18 months this began to change and his sleep pattern became more disturbed and he began to wake frequently and sometimes be up all night.

At that age he had just started taking a longer nap in the morning (falling asleep on me after his feed), prior to that he napped only for 30 minutes at a time. At night he would wake a few times a night and I would feed him back to sleep, he would wake for the day at 5:30am. Later he started to stay asleep longer after his buggy nap in the afternoon too, rather than his eyes pinging open after 30 minutes

@cuju2407 Glad he slept well at the start and sorry to hear that sleep became an issue for him as he got older 🙁. Its so hard when everyone in the homes sleep is disturbed.

@openupmyeagereyes thats so funny, I can literally time my wee guys naps and they usually end at the 30min mark 😂. Glad to hear as he got a bit older he took a longer AM nap! My wee guy still has bottles overnight, he does seem to need them as he finishes them. When did your wee guy drop milk feeds overnight?

Hi,

Just the opposite perspective. My three year old DS was a terrible sleepier (woke every 45 mins all night for the first year), fought every nap and has only just started sleeping through the night. He's not remotely autistic. I however have aged about a decade 😬

My autistic child slept much better than my non autistic child

I have a late diagnosed, high functioning daughter. She needed a strict routine, and was actually better being settled with minimal holding and dim lighting. She dropped her nap early but as long as I got her to bed early, she was fine. She also was incredibly active once she started walking and I think this helped regulate her.

I didn’t know she had ASC then, I just treated her as fairly high needs and was responsive to her and what worked.

I do realise this is very different to people parenting children with more severe ASC and where the circadian rhythm is not embedded and being responsive does not mean their child will be settled or sleep well.

@Foreverbaffled That sounds horrendous, I'm glad to hear he's starting to grow out of it :). That must of been a very difficult time. I feel ya, I have bags for the bags under my eyes 😂.

@Elephantsparade shows how individual each child is and that both NT and ND individuals each can have issues with sleep. :)

@godwingolly I'm so glad your daughter got her diagnosis and that you found ways that worked for you both 🙂. I'm really interested in the end part regarding the circadian rhythm not being embedded and wondered if I am maybe going wrong somewhere? I'm not quite sure what the end part meant.

She adapted well to going to bed when it was her natural tired time and with dim lighting and quiet. Making sure she was winding down at this time and allowed to sleep with minimal disturbance was crucial to her sleeping well. She was not a baby who could nap downstairs with us and then go up to bed when we did.

However, some children with autism will still struggle to sleep, even with a set routine and going to bed when seemingly tired. Some children even require melatonin. I just wanted to draw the distinction as it can be exhausting to parent an SN child and a poster suggesting it is parenting style is not helpful.

@godwingolly I really appreicate that post, Ive been getting so many comments from family etc saying I need to let him just cry it out, that if he stayed with them he would sleep and being told I'm my own worst enemy for not doing strict sleep training/CIO (which personally I dont agree with however would not shame other parents). The screams he has when ive tried putting him down when he seemed tried was cruel, its such a sore and distressed cry. Ive done/am doing the routine, making the environment suitable for sleep, looking at wake windows, look for sleep cues etc but honestly he seems to me like he is struggling with onset and maintaining sleep and is needing a lot of comfort and support to achieve sleep. I could be wrong as others say he is overtired however no matter what I try he doesn't nap >30 mins.

OP we hired a sleep consultant when ds was about 14 months as the frequent waking was horrendous for me. We did a version of pick up/put down and gradual retreat and within a few nights he was going to sleep by himself and I was no longer bf him in the night, after that we then got him to nap in his cot for around two hours after lunch. We had a blissful year of him napping for two hours and sleeping about 10.5 hours a night, though he would sometimes wake for about 90 minutes in the night (a preview of things to come...). A year later he simultaneously dropped his nap and we had to take the side off his cot. It was chaos for a while after that!

If I could go back I would attempt pick up put down sooner. I tried it half heartedly but didn't really do it properly. I just didn't like him crying at all.