I Jinxed It
Several days ago, I wrote about sleep and autism. Many children who are autistic have significant problems with establishing consistent sleep patterns.
I then made the fatal mistake of mentioning that Peter (who has had the worst sleep habits of all three kids) has settled into a routine that allows my husband and me to get a full night's sleep most of the time.
Well, that's no longer true. You may notice that the time stamp on this post is midnight. I am awake because Peter apparently feels that he doesn't need sleep tonight or at least not anytime soon. And since he has discovered that he can escape both gate and crib, there is little to keep him confined in his room. We have found that, by confining him in his room, we can get him to calm down long enough to go to sleep. Not now.
My husband did have a very good idea for fixing this problem but we still need to iron out some logistical issues. At the moment we are thinking of installing something like an old-fashioned barn door-- where the top opens separately from the bottom. If we install something like this, we could keep Peter in his room by locking the bottom half of the door from the outside and leaving the top open so he doesn't feel shut off from the world. Then, after he has gone to sleep, we could unlock the lower half of the door.
In the meantime, whether Peter naps and sleeps is anybody's guess.
I then made the fatal mistake of mentioning that Peter (who has had the worst sleep habits of all three kids) has settled into a routine that allows my husband and me to get a full night's sleep most of the time.
Well, that's no longer true. You may notice that the time stamp on this post is midnight. I am awake because Peter apparently feels that he doesn't need sleep tonight or at least not anytime soon. And since he has discovered that he can escape both gate and crib, there is little to keep him confined in his room. We have found that, by confining him in his room, we can get him to calm down long enough to go to sleep. Not now.
My husband did have a very good idea for fixing this problem but we still need to iron out some logistical issues. At the moment we are thinking of installing something like an old-fashioned barn door-- where the top opens separately from the bottom. If we install something like this, we could keep Peter in his room by locking the bottom half of the door from the outside and leaving the top open so he doesn't feel shut off from the world. Then, after he has gone to sleep, we could unlock the lower half of the door.
In the meantime, whether Peter naps and sleeps is anybody's guess.
Comments
Best wishes for lots of zzzzzz's