help, wont sleep in bed

[Guest guest]

hi, i need help my seven yr old wont sleep in his room/ it does not

matter what we do even if he intially falls asleep in his room he is on

the floor on my side(moms) well before morning/ his dad is getting

frustrated because we get no alone time/ we were military and my

husband got out because we felt the instability was hurting our son,

but he almost seems worse lately/ should we just give in and make a

pallet on my side of bed until he grows out of this or what because i

am exhausted from trying to put him back in his room and it doesnt

work/ i should admit when his dad was gone i did not worry about him

in our room , so i feel like this is my fault

[Guest guest]

Wow!  What a problem.  We have had a lot of sleep issues

with our younger son, who is now 8.  From the time he was 2, he didn’t’

sleep well, and we had to lock the door one way or another to keep him safe. 

This was at the insistence of the pediatrician…. We kept his mattress on

the floor so he could not fall “off” anything, and also tried to

keep stimulation in the room to a minimum to provide him with an environment

conducive to sleep. 

However, I truly wish I had had information on melatonin

MUCH EARLIER, because this has proved to be the best thing for him.  We tried

this last year, and it has been a godsend to us.  He takes 3 mg. of sublingual

(this is easier for US to get into him, as it is flavored).  It worked for a

while, and now he is tolerating the “time released” which gives him

a better quality of sleep….  He pops up like a cork at 6:30 in the

morning, though, ready to go!  It is too weird!

For years, I will tell you, Mr. “I Don’t Want to

Sleep” used to sleep in a nest on the floor of his room made of every odd

thing he could find in the house from tablecloths, to rugs to pots and pans –

he has a penchant for shiny objects……. He looked like a “prerequisite

course” for homelessness, sleeping on the floor in his nest of

treasures.  He would still do this if we let him have all that stuff in his

room, and we have to go in and thin it out from time to time.  He prefers the

hardness of sleeping on the floor – likes the input he gets all over his

body from the firmness of the floor.  A man from Ohio who has autism spectrum disorder

explained it to me very well – it was not the bed he was rejecting, it

was the input he was seeking.  We allowed him to sleep in a way-cool tent in

his room for a while, too – which, he of course, wanted to fill with all “his

cool stuff” he found interesting.  He slept in is tent for 7 ½ months –

on the floor. 

He now sleeps in a bed, with his stuff.  For a while, we had

to lock the door, but he knew that it would be opened as soon as he went to

sleep.  Now, we don’t have to do it at all.  He still looks like “the

homeless project”.  The melatonin is still wonderful for keeping him

asleep and keeping him from roaming.  It is cheap and cost effective, and

provides him good rest.  (cuts down on hyperactive, disruptive behaviors if

your kid gets good sleep…. This is not to say he doesn’t take his

ritilin, but it does help with him not being over-taxed at school and

distressed from being sleep deprived…) 

There are times we allow our son to watch a “short”

DVD or video while he is dosing off, though not all the time.  He goes to bed

pretty early – , at his request, so watching a video is not a big deal…

he is out by the time it is over…  and asleep by the time I want him to

be. 

Hang in there.  This will iron out for you.  It does take

some persistence, and we do have some nights where we have a wandering kiddo

that we have to redirect back to his room.  We do have “different”

summer routine, etc. if he can tolerate it, too.  The thing is, getting that

initial schedule set.  You might even want to get him a visual schedule of what

you want him to do at each time.  Get ready for bed, take meds, go in your

room, lay down, shut out light, etc.  (Oh, we do have a nightlight/battery

operated lantern we got at Home Depot that is really neat… It is a

lantern – that has 2 bulbs that can light up, or 1, or a nightlight

inside.  They have them in green and red, and you can switch the switch 3

different ways.  My son loves his light – we go in and turn it off each

night after he falls asleep…)

W.P.

[Guest guest]

I had to laugh at the reference to the collection of stuff in the bed. We deal with that every night. Sometimes I wonder how there is room for Connor in his bed! I periodically thin it out to only stuffed animals but it's mind boggling at the amount of stuff he can get in a twin bed and still sleep in it! We do have a Disney Cars alarm clock that has a built in red night light on it, so that stays on all the time. The TV runs pretty much all night in there, too. We gave up a long time ago on getting him to bed by 9:00. He pretty much will crawl in bed around 9:30 and usually is asleep by 10 or shortly after. We spent several years trying to move his internal clock forward and just couldn't get him to do it no matter how may different routines we tried--a side effect of the Concerta probably, but he's very good most nights about "putting himself to bed" around 9:30 now and gets up between 6 and 7 most mornings, so I don't think 9 hours of sleep is really doing that bad overall, so he's averaging 9 hours a night.

I do have to say that it has gotten better over the last year or two, though, in terms of him making through the whole night in his bed. I think some of it just comes with age and maturing a little combined with the resolve not to give in and let him take over our bed every night.

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To: autism-georgia From: jpearce95@...Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:45:19 -0500Subject: Re:help, wont sleep in bed

Wow! What a problem. We have had a lot of sleep issues with our younger son, who is now 8. From the time he was 2, he didn’t’ sleep well, and we had to lock the door one way or another to keep him safe. This was at the insistence of the pediatrician…. We kept his mattress on the floor so he could not fall “off” anything, and also tried to keep stimulation in the room to a minimum to provide him with an environment conducive to sleep.

However, I truly wish I had had information on melatonin MUCH EARLIER, because this has proved to be the best thing for him. We tried this last year, and it has been a godsend to us. He takes 3 mg. of sublingual (this is easier for US to get into him, as it is flavored). It worked for a while, and now he is tolerating the “time released” which gives him a better quality of sleep…. He pops up like a cork at 6:30 in the morning, though, ready to go! It is too weird!

For years, I will tell you, Mr. “I Don’t Want to Sleep” used to sleep in a nest on the floor of his room made of every odd thing he could find in the house from tablecloths, to rugs to pots and pans – he has a penchant for shiny objects……. He looked like a “prerequisite course” for homelessness, sleeping on the floor in his nest of treasures. He would still do this if we let him have all that stuff in his room, and we have to go in and thin it out from time to time. He prefers the hardness of sleeping on the floor – likes the input he gets all over his body from the firmness of the floor. A man from Ohio who has autism spectrum disorder explained it to me very well – it was not the bed he was rejecting, it was the input he was seeking. We allowed him to sleep in a way-cool tent in his room for a while, too – which, he of course, wanted to fill with all “his cool stuff” he found interesting. He slept in is tent for 7 ½ months – on the floor.

He now sleeps in a bed, with his stuff. For a while, we had to lock the door, but he knew that it would be opened as soon as he went to sleep. Now, we don’t have to do it at all. He still looks like “the homeless project”. The melatonin is still wonderful for keeping him asleep and keeping him from roaming. It is cheap and cost effective, and provides him good rest. (cuts down on hyperactive, disruptive behaviors if your kid gets good sleep…. This is not to say he doesn’t take his ritilin, but it does help with him not being over-taxed at school and distressed from being sleep deprived…)

There are times we allow our son to watch a “short” DVD or video while he is dosing off, though not all the time. He goes to bed pretty early – , at his request, so watching a video is not a big deal… he is out by the time it is over… and asleep by the time I want him to be.

Hang in there. This will iron out for you. It does take some persistence, and we do have some nights where we have a wandering kiddo that we have to redirect back to his room. We do have “different” summer routine, etc. if he can tolerate it, too. The thing is, getting that initial schedule set. You might even want to get him a visual schedule of what you want him to do at each time. Get ready for bed, take meds, go in your room, lay down, shut out light, etc. (Oh, we do have a nightlight/battery operated lantern we got at Home Depot that is really neat… It is a lantern – that has 2 bulbs that can light up, or 1, or a nightlight inside. They have them in green and red, and you can switch the switch 3 different ways. My son loves his light – we go in and turn it off each night after he falls asleep…)

W.P.