Holidays and ASD

[gigglinggoblin]

I want to go away with my kids, ds has ASD, 3 younger ones. Cant stay in a hotel as ds wont go to sleep til god knows when and will screech the place down when he wakes up. What do you do? I dont want to spend a fortune as in the past we have come home the same day due to his behaviour. Caravans are ok but would like to go to York or London. I have been looking for apartments with no luck, any ideas?

Hi,

I dont have a child with asd but l do work closely with families and people with asd. Last year l worked with some families to prepare them for going on holiday. The main themes were prepare the child via visuals cues such as a holiday book. A calendar to give the child information about the holiday and how long it will last. Give the holiday a structure however loose seemed to work. Places with a chance for their child to have some familiar items such as DVDs from home. This all of course depends on your child's ability to follow visuals and comprehend different ideas. Have you thought about house swapping? or cottages outside of York. One family stayed in a cottage outside of Pickering which had a group of cottages and a small indoor swimming pool. I would say they had thebest holiday but they really prepared their child well. Hope you don't mind me answering when l dont actually have a child with ASD.

not at all! much appreciated

ds is high functioning, its just the inappropriate behaviour at bad times of day will cause problems if other people are too close like in a hotel. Have had no luck finding cottages anywhere but it would seem the logical idea if i could find one!

how big would you need apartments to be?

we always g self catering/ serviced apartments, as it is so much easier to make it seem like home for dd1 (ASD)

last year we stayed in a house form here - really central (just around the corner form the Minster - literally 5 min walk to the centre) which was quite reasonable for a 3 bed house at peak times (can't remember what we paid, but was pleasantly surprised, especially given location). The house was lovely, and the company quite helpful.

I always google serviced apartments holiday let, wherever we want to stay, and have always found somewhere - London, Bristol, York, Liverpool - just back form a holiday in Scotland too. If you go for seviced apartments, they quite often will have no min nights requirements, so could go for 2 nights, or 4 iyswim, instead of having to book a full week.

If he is high functioning l would really think about using visual supports to prepare him. Are the inappropriate behaviours at home too or are they just much worst on holiday? How old is your ds? Keep looking l am sure you 'll find something like a cottage complex. Good luck

He does it at home too but he is easier to contain and we have thick walls so he doesnt disturb the neighbours! I am thinking staying in a travel lodge with walls the thickness of loo roll wont work well lol. He is 10 and understands what is happening, its just anything out of routine the abnormal behaviour goes through the roof and if we dont have the facilities to contain him and keep him calm its pointless going.

We tend to let him research on the internet what we are going to do, he enjoys google and gets about as much info as is available that way. I will try googling cottage complex aswell, sounds like a nice way to do it. Thanks for your help, the suggestions are really useful

How about a youth hostel? They have family rooms and the one we stayed in in York was really good. And they take Tesco vouchers as payment. It was a big old house with high ceilings and thick walls and seemed fairly sound resistant! They do a pretty nice breakfast and you can get evening meals there too.

(DS has AS by the way and can be very distressed by routine changes and pretty noisy even when he is relatively calm.)

May or may not be of interest for a full holiday but we just did one of these breaks over the easter weekend....(Please note that I am not a travel agent nor am I employed by these people).

www.village-hotels.co.uk/leisure-breaks/family.aspx

My ds is 8 and ASD. We have always done the caravan / keycamp / french life type of holiday and made sure that the car was his constant-security. But he wanted a trip to Chester Zoo (excellent day out!) and friends of ours with two SN children recommended the chain of hotels to us.

So... we stayed at the one in Warrington and had a lovely time, were made to feel very welcome and I felt relaxed and spoilt rotten. Rooms and facilities are great for families and Spa is not too over priced either. (Paid under £70 per night for family room & breakfast for 4 of us).

The one in Leeds is only 20mins from York centre.