by Marcia Hinds
My son did not limit his difficult behaviors to only the daylight hours. Getting Ryan to sleep started to become more difficult with each passing day. We attributed this new development to separation anxiety and his excitement over all his new motor accomplishments. Whenever we put him to bed, the next thing we heard was a blood-curdling scream. He didn’t want to go to sleep, and he made certain we knew he wasn’t going to sleep. Sleeping issues were just another symptom we failed to recognize about autism. And by that time, we were all too tired to recognize or analyze anything. After we started medical treatment, his sleep issues became easier to deal with.
In time, we figured out how to help him behaviorally. His dad was in charge of the bedtime routine, because his mom was too exhausted after dealing with autism all day long. Remember how important sameness is to our kids? That is also true for bedtime routines. His dad did the same routine every night. First was his bath. Then they read a book together. After, every night his dad crawled in bed with Ryan and they cuddled as he told him his bedtime story. In time this bedtime routine was what my husband enjoyed the most, probably because he craved things that allowed him to just be Ryan’s dad. Here is a video that may give you some other ideas to help with the sleep problem and how to get our children to stay in bed.
NOTE FROM MARCIA HINDS – Ryan and Megan’s mom:
Ryan began to learn and act more typical only after he received proper medical treatment combined with behavioral and educational interventions. To preview “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE – Winning Our War Against Autism” go to Amazon or www.autismandtreatment.com.
ALONE there is little we can do about autism…
TOGETHER we will be unstoppable
