I’ve probably been fairly spoiled, as it goes, when it comes to sleep cycles and Autism.

I see and hear a lot from other parents of children with Autism about how they have struggles with their child and sleep cycles.  Admittedly, you’ve all heard about the struggles we have when we’re on the road.    At home, however, we mostly don’t have that much of a problem with the Monster sleeping all night – he occasionally does get up at like 6 or so, but more often than not, he sleeps through the night or has proven capable of getting himself to go back to sleep.

So we’re still looking at things like melatonin when we travel (we’re already doing some more minor things in terms of trying to get the Monster to settle), if only to try to regain some sanity when we’re not at home, but that’s another issue.

This morning, R woke up around 5 AM.

Now, this wouldn’t have been a problem – I let him cry it out for a good five or ten minutes before either of us really started debating doing anything about it – but after my wife went into the other room to try to soothe him, it just kind of escalated.  At some point, she thought that bringing him back to our room would be a good idea, and it seemed like he’d settle for a bit…

Except that R is a “normal” two year old.  Fully awake, he was content to snuggle in the big bed for a bit, and then he was ready to get up and play.  At 6 AM.  (Of course, en route to the downstairs, so I could let my better half get some rest so she could be social today, we could hear the Monster had gotten woken up as well, so… FML.)

Why is it that we’re the only parents of a child with Autism who are thinking of drugging the normal one?