If you are a caregiver for someone with autism, you know sleep can be a challenge. Often times, these children are up at all hours – going to bed late in the evening and sometimes are up throughout the night. The result of this erratic sleeping produces parents who are distressed and irritated from sleep deprivation and can also heighten the child’s sensitivities – particularly where an autistic child might be overly sensitive to touch or noise – these consequently are exacerbated. It becomes a tortuous cycle for both parent and child.
The following are some suggestions as provided by our support community to help your child — and you — get better and more restful sleep.
- Try melatonin: Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone produced by animals and humans. Most frequently used by adults for jet lag, melatonin supplements help adjust the circadian clock to environmental cycles and is commonly used to regulate the sleeping patterns of many children with autism and ADHD as they frequently don’t seem to produce enough naturally for themselves. While not an FDA-approved drug, it can be found in most health food stores and is frequently recommended by naturopaths.
- Take a warm tub: They?re not just for ?Saturday nights? these days. Try making a warm tub part of the pre-bedtime routine. This too can have a calming effect.
- Mellow out before bed:Having an excited environment, can naturally keep a child?s body in an excited state. Before heading up to bed, try cutting out excess simulation ? tv, music, video games ? that can lead to excitability. Turn off some of the lights ? signal that a time for rest is coming.
- Provide activity in the waking hours: Having your child run around and physically exhaust himself is a great way to go. Providing the opportunity for vigorous physical activity during the waking hours not only helps provide a natural chemical balance within the body through the release of endorphins, but also facilitates healthy exhaustion helpful in inducing sleep. Make sure the exercise takes place a good couple of hours prior to bedtime.
Finally, Establish a routine and stick to it: Taking lots of naps during the day? While a brief controlled nap (20 minutes or so, but not longer) is okay, try to limit longer naps and napping close to bed time. Establish a routine using the aforementioned tactics. Set a regular bedtime – and then stick to it.
By following some of these tips, you may find yourself enjoying better, more predicable sleep. It may take some time, initially, to build regularity and predictability into changes you make prior to bedtime, but you ought to begin seeing results within the first few weeks. You will be able to soon be able to think more clearly, and your child will benefit from the routine and overall benefits of having a regular and healthy about of daily sleep.
Brian Field is the National Autism Examiner
Tags: autism, autism help, autism parenting, autism support, sleep tips
Navigating the complicated matrix of options and understanding one’s rights can frequently be a harrowing process for caregivers of an autistic child. Those in receipt of a new autism diagnosis seldom have a clear set of steps to undertake, frozen with grief and shock. Even those who have had their children’s diagnosis in hand for years can find garnering support, even though it may be mandated by law, a frustrating web of bureaucracy.
Areva Martin comes with answers. In her book The Everyday Advocate: How to Stand Up for Your Autistic Child, she lays out a means for parents to better grapple and fight for their children’s rights. A lawyer by profession and mother of a son with autism, Martin’s book sets aside the debate of the causes of autism and instead digs into the much needed topic of services identification and classroom and medical care evaluation. Each section is broken down into easily understandable sections with references, checklists and summaries at the end of each chapter.
The book is divided into three main parts. The first area addresses getting a diagnosis, working through the shock/grieving process and the elements of self-advocacy. The second section focuses on personal advocacy, avoiding isolation and balancing your career while advocating for your autistic child. Finally, the last section details public advocacy, navigating therapy and educational decisions and other legal consultation areas. Also included are various appendixes that provide sample letter forms and a student self-monitoring IEP worksheet.
Too often, parents do not have the financial means to engage an advocate, or simply “give up” when the prospects for fighting for their child become too great. While professional advocates can indeed be valuable resources at times, knowing how to properly advocate – knowing what to look for, how to take the needed steps – for your autistic child can be a godsend. Martin’s book can serve as a standard “go to” resource for parents with children with ASD across the country. As Martin writes, “Know that you’re on a steep learning curve and will not be able to master everything overnight. All you can do is your best. If you take responsibility where you can and resolve to improve, you will make a positive difference.”
Brian Field is the National Autism Examiner
Tags: autism, autism advocate, autism help, autism parenting, autism support
For those parents seeking the latest information on autism “cures,” or autism therapy, autism education, diagnostic and therapeutic tools– there is an overabundance. For many, however, real stories from other parents of gratitude and perspective can offer just as many rewards as those of diagnosis or crisis. Such is the pilot project and mission of The Comfortable Chaos Project, an initiative begun by Melissa Ferguson and Brienne Hooker.
Ferguson is the mother of two; one of her daughters, Zoe, is five years old and diagnosed with autism. Zoe began to speak only six months ago.
Ferguson admittedly has at least one breakdown a day herself. Her life is “highly stressful, unpredictable stinky and sticky.” Like many parents with children on the spectrum, hers is a life filled with therapies, run-arounds, insurance forms, judgmental glares and advice — both solicited and unsolicited – from every corner of her life. Despite all of this, she loves her life and describes it as one characterized by “comfortable chaos.”
And so she has started The Comfortable Chaos Project, an effort to put faces to autism – to show that even though those with autism may see the world differently, they nonetheless have feelings, a need to be loved, and have as much worth and value as any human on the planet. She is in the process of collecting stories and interviews from families around the globe with a family member with autism . She recalls that when she initially received Zoe’s diagnosis, that “family perspective” was absent, and wants to share the everyday life stories – the raw, sad, happy, the untold. Says Ferguson, “I simply want to give hope and inspiration (that I so desperately needed) to families living with autism.”
If you wish to participate in Ferguson’s Comfortable Chaos Project you may so do at:
Melissa Ferguson
Comfortable Chaos Project
P.O. Box 246
DeMotte, IN 45310
(219) 798-6459
Or via email at: comfortablechaos@hotmail.com
Brian Field is the co-founder of Autism Support Network
Tags: autism, autism help, autism parenting, autism stories, autism support
