Coping with Autism

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 bar...

Peter, again, refused to cooperate last night at bedtime and ended up finally going to sleep at midnight. And he didn't want to nap today so, being the Houdini that he is, he managed to escape my seemingly impenetrable jerry-rigged blockade while I was writing downstairs. He then decided that our upstairs bathroom needed to be turned into a swimming pool or small lake. I know this because, as I wrote, I suddenly heard additional water-dripping sounds apart from those made by our fishtank. My kitchen ceiling was leaking. I ran upstairs to discover, to my horror, that my bathroom was (and still is) greatly flooded. So I sit here, exhausted, out of clean and dirty dry towels, trying to decide if I should call my husband now or later to tell him. Later, definitely later.

Last night we had to put Peter back in the crib (I was so looking for to taking it down!). As I mentioned in a previous post, Peter has gotten tall enough to hike his leg over the gate and hoist himself up and over. And kids with autism are horrible sleepers and nappers. Take the average child's reluctance to sleep or nap, cube it and you're close to what it's like. Next step will be a sit down discussion with my husband to brainstorm our options. We'll end up deciding on a solution after we look at catalogs, visit the baby section of a store for safety ideas and take into consideration Peter's personality. In the meantime, we're adapting to the situation as much as possible.

Nathan's fever broke over the weekend (his fever lasted about 24 hours or so) but he's been in a grumpy/clingy mood ever since. I'm fearful he has an ear infection (which is more common in kids with autism) and I'm praying he doesn't. He's supposed to see an ENT on Thursday as a follow-up to a previous appointment. However, when he has an ear infection he's extremely grumpy and extremely clingy and it's impossible to get anything done. To add to this, over the weekend Peter figured out how to climb over his gate (without a chair or any other height enabling assistance). He has gotten tall enough that he can swing his leg over, hoist himself up and drop to the other side and, although I do have concerns about his ability to sing anything lower than a high tenor in the future, he manages to do this without getting hurt. Right now he is lying on our couch supposedly attempting sleep but it doesn't sound like we will have a successful naptime. And, again...

The boys have been home all week from school (Gabrielle goes to a private school so she went back on Tuesday). And as things would go, both of them decided that napping was low on their list of priorities and took a nap only once this week. (And of course, I have writing deadlines looming over my head.) Sleep, for children with autism (and their parents!), is often a hit or miss game. Many parents experience sleep-shortened nights or sleepless nights while their little angels seem to have no concern over the lack of sunlight outside their windows. Peter did this for awhile and I know we are likely going to experience it again in the future. Some parents find it occurs in spurts every few weeks while others find that their children go one way or another for a few years and then switch. A few months before we got Peter's diagnosis, Nathan was on the way and, since we still live in a small home, we were trying to get Peter to share Gabrielle's room so we could put Nathan in the nu...