Examples of ds'behaviors ...yet dh is in denial!?

[mysonben]

A long winded post i am about to write but i need to get it off my chest.
My ds (3and1/2) gets upset at certain noises , his reactions varies according to the noise level and wether he has heard the noise before or not. It's weird , he will cover his ears when i flush the loo, or if a car reves its engine near him,... yet he doesn't when we go watch the trains go pass (he is mad about trains !
Ds is particular to the extreme when he goes to the toilet, for about 3 months he would lock himself in the loo and scream if we tried to get in, now he has relaxed a bit and allow the door to be ajar, he insists the stair gates be open or closed according to his mood before going up to the loo, no bits of paper must be present in the toilet bowl before he uses it or he refuses to even sit, we must put the lid down before we flush , he takes agessss to do his business and goes through phases of asking for the loo when he doesn't need it, it's a mightmare before bedtime we have to allow 10-15 mins for his toilet routine.
DS will insists to take cars, train books , puzzles, ...to bed which he puts in the gap between the matress and the safety gate of the bed, he doesn't do much with them but they have to be there or he creates and won't go to sleep.(it's a pain if we can't find a particular book or else)
DS is obssessed with noises like car alarms, ice cream van, lorries, motorbikes, sirens, planes,...and will ask a billion time a day 'what's that noise ?' (his first proper sentence btw!)
Ds is sensitive to heat and cold, he has cried while eating an ice cream , or won't sit in the bath because it's too hot (even when his baby sis has been sat in it for 5 mins)
Ds likes to use the words 'this way' , he insists we do things this way or that way when playing, or walking ,...
DS has an exagerated laugh , he laughs very loudly when there are no reason for it, we went to a bbq on saturday and he was laughing constantly ,every time someone else laughed he had to as well. Several times people commented on this.
At the party there was no other kids, ds was given some bricks to play with , all he did was separate the different colours and built tall towers with same colour bricks.
Ds when in contact with other kids , either ignore them ,shouts 'go away' at them and plays alone, or tries to join in but is awkward and doesn't quite understand what the games are or what they are saying (ex: ds at the park , 2 kids approach him and ask him to play 'hit' ,ds ponts at the nearby ice cream van and says 'look ice cream van' so the kids walk away.
In general daily living with ds such as 'eating, getting dressed , bath, bedtime , going shopping,..' is difficult because he doesn't want to comply , or gets upset because something bothers him.
DS doesn't like to share toys or food.
We had to stop his daytime naps long ago as he was always so mega grumpy when he woke up sometimes for 1 or 2 hours. Then he was awake creating in his bed at night until 1 or 2 am.
Well this is just a few of ds' particularities, he is by far the most difficult of all my 3 children, but he is a sunny child, who smiles lots, and is endearing and we love him to bits.
My dh won't admit there is something else wrong other than his speech dealy , he keeps saying 'evetry thing will be fine once he starts talking /understanding better!'
I so wish ! and lately we are at logger heads about how to handle ds because dh wants to treat him like any other child even with all his difficulties.
I' m sorry about this longggg rant but i needed to get it out because i feel so depressed with it all at the moment.
Thanks for reading.

[mysonben]

Lingle, thank you for your advice, i 'm always on the look out for tips , books ,... to help manage and understand better "ds' attitude to life".
I will look for these books you mention, it should help DH if there is no mention to ASD.
Still we just had an awful morning with ds having a meltdown , starting with his refusal to have a bath, then to get washed, then to get dressed (went through all of his t-shirts with him and still he was having a tantrum) , then he wouldn't come downstairs because one of DH's work collague was there in the lounge,... a total nighmare (he was screaming so bad that he was scaring dd), i finally managed to get ds settled with his fave puzzles.

[lingle]

It's so hard mysonben isn't it?

I decided yesterday that if DS2 and I had an "our song" it would be the one that goes:

"fools to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

The fools and jokers being, respectively, friends who say he's spoilt and professionals who take a one-size-fits-all "oh he's autistic" approach.

Meanwhile I'm trying to negoatiate a middle course between these two approaches which clearly each have elements of truth yet are each fundamentally flawed - only to run into problems in my marriage because DH said I was "obsessed" with the issue - I've got DH on board at the moment for now though in that he takes his time with DS2 very seriously - asks for vocabulary lists, new games to play, that kind of thing.

Anyway, I always feel an affinity to the "in denial dads" and grandparents. DH and I are both in that camp yet are fascinated by the similarities between our kids and kids with quite severe autism - doesn't mean we buy into this whole "triad" malary though.....

Yes - get DH to read "It takes two to talk" published by Hanen and available from their UK distributor which I think is called Wilmslow