I know a lot of parents of children with ASD who have issues with their kids sleeping.

Now, I’ve frequently mentioned how the Monster is awful about sleeping when it comes to going away.  Our suspicion is that he’s just wired to get up at some point in the middle of the night – the fact that no one shares a room with him lets him do whatever, and he gets himself back into bed after that for some more sleep.  (When we’re in a hotel room, it’s absolutely awful because nothing we can do – melatonin, Benadryl, nothing – keeps him out for the entire night.)

And of course, we’ve thrown another wrench into the whole thing by working on his night-time toileting.

So far, it’s not been a problem, when we wake him at 10-11 PM and take him to the bathroom – he fights off the intrusion in his sleep cycle, since he’s still fully out, but he gets up after a bit of urging, and either need to go or doesn’t.  (It’s been “doesn’t” for the time being, unfortunately, or “has gone already”.)  And then he goes back to bed without another fight, though I’ll admit that I’ve been more inclined to tend towards giving him a melatonin to ensure he goes back to sleep, though my wife’s been urging me to back off with it, since he probably would go back to sleep without aid.

On the other hand, we’ve also been running into mornings where he’s still not ready to get up, mostly after he’s been very active the night before.  It’s not common, but if we’ve no where to be the next day, I’ve been more inclined to let him stay up later, just to intentionally have him burn off more energy, hopefully sleep later/better… and okay, it’s mostly so that I can hopefully get some more sleep myself.  It doesn’t seem to matter when the sun rises, but more that it’s the question of what time he’s ready to rise, just like his bedtime.

The only thing that I’d care to really address, aside from finding a way to get him to sleep wholly through the night, would be how he sleeps… but I suppose it falls into the category of “don’t mess with it if it works for him”.  I mean, okay, I can understand the stuffed animals or whatnot.  But… the whole ‘burrowing into the bed’ thing, I’ve never quite gotten, and on any given evening, it’s a tossup if he’s going to sleep lengthwise or widthwise…

I know.  Pick my battles.