DS2 has started to turn his light on........

[5inthebed]

Quick backround...I need a bit of help.....

DS2 is ASD, and from being in a bed, has got up several times a night. He has always just played quietly with his toys (in the dark) and goes back to sleep about half an hour or so later. This has been the norm for 2 years now, but it has all changed the past week.

He is now turning on his bedroom light each time, and playing really loudly until I come put him back to bed. He is also letting himself out his room, and coming through to get me up, which he has never done.

I've got a 5 week old, so not sure if the baby crying has knocked his routine, which I'm sure it hasnt, or if this is just a new thing he is going to be doing for the rest of his life .

Has anyone had this happen? What should I do? Who can I contact for help? I'm so tired from looking after ds2 during the night now and doing midnight feeds with ds3. I could handle just one of them getting up, but this is just silly.

take the bulb out at night! how old is he? can you put a tall gate or something in his doorway to stop him escaping?

DS1 has always done this, firstly we removed the lightbulb. Then when we had his room replastered we had the lightswitch moved to outside his bedroom door.

Due to safety reasons, DS1 has always had a small bolt on his door, we are waiting for social services to look at provided star locks to replace this, although I am not overly sure on what these are.

DS1's night time routine is constantly changing, especially during summer when it is lighter outside for longer, so I wouldn't be surprised if the change in your household has knocked his routine out a little.

Can you turn off the light circuit at the mains ? It depends how your circuit is wired but you might be able to switch off just the upstairs lights circuit - you can still have plug in bedside lights as they run off a different circuit.

We've also done all of these in the past, no bulb in bedroom and turning off all the upstairs lights by flicking the switch in the fuse box.

We now have a clock from john lewis which is also a night light and has a rabbit in bed or off to school and you can set the time so your child gets the idea to stay in bed when the rabbit is.

I didnt even think of taking his light bulb out, sleep deprivation obviously getting to me! I've took his bulb out, thanks ladies, will see how I get on.

Not sure I want to lock him in his room just yet, I'm hoping we wont have to resort to this. Might invest in a baby gate for his room though.

i would invest in a dog gate- they are taller than standard stairgates, will do link to the one i have....here

I guess he hears you and the baby during the night, and can't yet realise that it's still nighttime. We're SUCH bad sleepers for much of our lives, and our brains are wide awake so very quickly.

I'd suggest a nightlight for his room if this doesn't work. He'd have some sense of there being some light, but not enough to really wake him fully? Even now I can't sleep in total darkness, so that's another possibility? And the lights-on and getting you seem to be things we'd do when we're stressed and needing to know some clues about what's expected of us now. Establishing a quiet 'not morning yet' phrase or signal and some way to tell how long it will be until morning could be good?

Well last night was horrible. He screamed each time he wanted his light on, so much so that he woke the whole house up. Which is unusual as both my DH and ds1 sleep like the dead.

He has never been bothered by the dark before, and I dont think he has a fear of the dark. He will go to bed without the lights on.

Amber thanks for the advice, I'm going to go out and get a nightlight for him today.

Possible ASD thinking pattern.

Previously:
'Bed. Note quiet in house. Quiet equals nighttime. Nighttime = if stressed, wake, play with toys in dark, go back to sleep.'

Recently:
'New strange baby thing arrived. Noise, smells, change of routine, anything could happen. Error! Alert! Routine Alteration Disaster! Ah...Bed. Note nighttime now seems to have bits of day in it when family attending to baby thing. Stressful. Baby thing wakes all sorts of strange times and because my hearing is so sensitive, I hear everything. Need toys. Toys calm me down. But day equals light and toys, not dark and toys?! And day equals going to get parents who clearly have forgotten it's now bits of day during the night and they need to wake up!'

Last night:
'New strange baby thing continues. Noises, smells, change of routine. New disaster - the bits of day that happen during the night now have complete darkness! Major Error Alert! The sun has gone out! The lights no longer work! We will be living in the dark forever!!!! Arrghhhhhhhh!'

Yup, I'd scream.

We took the light bulb out to start with, but we've now got a special switch which works with a key. We hang the key up out of DS2's reach (and sight).

Dh bought it from an electrical shop - it's called a Keyswitch. He said it was quite cheap - £3 or £4?

Amber you have such a fantasti way of explaining how ds2 might be feeling. I feel a bit terrible disrupting his perfectly happy routine. I'm just surprised it didnt happen straight away when ds3 came home from hospital. Its taken him 5 weeks to react.

Have you ever had guests to stay in the house who were only there for a few days or a couple of weeks, or gone on holiday with him for a couple of weeks or more to somewhere new? We can rationalise that this might be something similar, and that things are going to go back to normal soon.

I think we're pretty good at 'bottling up our fears' for a set time, then thinking "Oh no...this isn't changing back to 'normal' again...this is permanent!" That's when the worries set in.