I’ve probably stated, ad nauseam, that we’ve been terrified of travel with the Monster. The big issue isn’t the “getting there” part, the changes to schedule, or other odd shifts… but nighttime issues.
And still, for some crazy reason, we’ve taken at least one more-than-a-day trip each year for the last few. Continue reading
I’m about to say something that’s absolutely abhorrent to so many other parents in my Autism parent circles online.
I love daylight savings time. Continue reading
Children are creatures of habit – children on the Spectrum more so.
It’s taken us a while to get the Monster into the swing of things in terms of a daily rhythm. Whether that day is a school day or not is immaterial. Case in point – on Friday, he was home from school for the day, but he still got up reasonably “early” and still wanted to get dressed. But while that’s not bad on a weekday, when I have to be up anyway, it’s not so great on weekends. Continue reading
A while back, we changed up the Monster’s night time routine to try to ensure ourselves a good night’s sleep. Despite the fact that we’ve no way to know how much he’s actually using the iPad each night, it’s been a godsend in the sense that we’ve been able, ourselves, to get some rest.
But nothing lasts forever.
I’m going to throw this one out to the hivemind, because I’m absolutely stumped here.
A while back, we decided to let the Monster have his iPad overnight, in coordination with the melatonin and occasional drugging to try to get him to sleep through the night. My goal, frankly, is simple, and defers to a rule we used to (basically) have in my mother’s house – as long as we weren’t keeping anyone else up, it was okay if we weren’t sleeping.
Save that the last several mornings that I’ve gotten up for my daily walk/run, the Monster’s been up at 5 AM on his iPad. Continue reading
Things were quiet at our house last night, mercifully.
Okay, so we kinda took things into our own hands. The doctor had okayed, once upon a time, the occasional use of Benedryl to knock the Monster out, and let’s be honest – he needs the sleep as much as we do. It’s not good for us to be getting up every few hours because of his screaming, and at a certain point, giving him seriously large doses of melatonin’s going to not be doing us any favors. (Plus, I imagine he’ll build up a tolerance to it.) So last night, we medicated him – i.e., I ground up some and snuck it into some applesauce, and gave it to him as a treat after dinner – and he went to bed.
And then I spent most of the night worrying because of how quiet he was. *sigh* Continue reading
The Monster’s been awful about his sleeping.
Now, this isn’t a surprise to us when we’re not at home. He’s routinely been bad about sleeping when we’re in a hotel, to the point that I’m not getting much rest when we’re away from home, and we’re hating life about traveling. We’ve come to the conclusion – confirmed through my working a couple of very weird shifts or getting up for my morning runs – that he’s actually waking… and we’re not hearing him being up.
That changed, in the last few weeks. Continue reading
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.)
So for those following my tweet feed this weekend, you’re aware that we managed to take in Surfers Healing again in New Jersey, at the Autism Beach Bash held by Autism Family Services of New Jersey. Given that he drew the first possible surf time (9 AM), this therefore entailed an overnight stay.
And, for the second straight trip, our ‘backup plan’ failed us. Continue reading
So I clearly should not have said something.
Around 1:30 AM, the Monster woke up and started talking to himself, despite the melatonin. By 1:45, it was clear that we had to leave the hotel room, or he’d end up waking up R, and ensuring that his mother would be up all night. So, as happens when we go on vacation, I decided to take him out in the car and pray that he’d go to sleep eventually.
Yeah… ‘eventually’ was about 6 AM. Continue reading