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It seems a bit of an oversight that I haven’t talked about sleep much on the blog before, although we’ve had a variety of issues with it over the years as a family. We’re at a fairly good place at the moment, but it hasn’t come easily and we’ve had to make lots of sleep adaptations, as any family with autistic members will have to.
At the moment at home there’s me, a teen and a tween. My main issue with sleep is getting myself to go do it, which is a perverse mixture of demand avoidance, night owl tendencies, and enjoyment of the peace and quiet of being alone in the dark. I suspect I’m not the only parent to lean that way. I have a single bed with a memory foam mattress topper and a Lidl weighted blanket. I love my weighted blanket very much – it’s peculiar, I know it’s heavy when I’m trying to move it around to make the bed, but when I pull it over me to sleep, it’s as if it’s not there. And if it really isn’t there, I just can’t get comfortable to sleep.
Teen previously known as Smallest (who shall henceforth be referred to as TpkaS) has even more sleep issues. We’d tried everything, all the usual advice to reduce phone usage in the evening, have a relaxing routine, quiet room or audiobooks or yoga before bed, I’d even resorted to reading things like Fast Asleep by Michael Mosley (#affiliate – also just saw there’s an updated version of this with a 4 week sleep programme, will see if the library has it) which did have some excellent tips in it. I still have the relaxkids CD too, but that is a bit young for her now.
I was reluctant to get her a weighted blanket when she was younger as I wasn’t sure how good it was for children, so I got her a much smaller lighter one, and she loved it. Now however, she’s adult sized and taller than me, so I’m looking into the alternatives. Weighted blankets for adults though do say that they shouldn’t be used by under 18s, so I guess I’ll just have to hang on to the new Simba Orbit Weighted blanket for myself 😉. It’ll be a real hardship, to be fair, what with the removable washable cover, tabs to attach the blanket within and general luxury feel of it all…. I thought some pictures would help here!
Alongside all the sleep adaptations that help her relax and make her sleep more effective, we did get a referral to the paediatric Chronic Fatigue clinic – she doesn’t have chronic fatigue, which I knew, but the paediatrician locally screens children’s referrals that mention fatigue and sees them in clinic so that she can get a full history and overview. She diagnosed a sleep disorder and prescribed Melatonin – please, please, please, if you think this might be where you want to go, push your GP for a referral to a consultant. GPs can’t prescribe melatonin except in a shared care relationship, so you need that consultant input. For us, it’s helped her be able to actually feel sleepy and thus get to bed at a semi decent time (still a work in progress!) and we’ve seen a real reduction in fatigue, with added ability to actually get up in the morning. I am, however, not a medical professional, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m handing out medical advice, I am categorically not doing that!
All of these things work together – you do need to look at all the adaptations and advice particular to your own situation, and remember even within a family, each person will have their own needs. Some people love weighted blankets, some hate them (difficult if two people sharing a bed are on opposite sides of the divide there!), some get on with routine, some don’t. Sleep is massively important to us at all stages of life, so do what you can to make it work for you and yours!