When you have a child on the spectrum, odds are, you have a child with a sleep disorder. Or feeding issue. Or both. Ava's issue is sleep. She can go to sleep with ease. She can self soothe - ever since she was an infant. However she cannot stay asleep. She has night wakings, sometimes for hours, in the middle of the night. She is always tired. She does not function well. She naps, sometimes for three or four hours, and then does not go to sleep until late at night. The cycle repeats. And she has to work in therapy as well. It's a nightmare. We are a family of zombies.
Our solution is in the form of drugs. Ava was on the anti-depressant, Remeron, from which she had a bad reaction of irritability, crying spells, lethagy and extreme fatigue and sleepiness. And did I mention she is a little over 2?
Our pediatrician told us to try melatonin, which is a natural substance, and can be bought in a health food store. It will help Ava get to sleep, but possibly not be effective in keeping her asleep. If Melatonin does not work, we can try Clonidine, which is a blood pressure medication often used for autism, tourettes and tic disorders. Clonidine can cause dry mouth, constipation, nausea, daytime sleepiness, weakness, and lethargy. YAY.
If that does not work, we can try Risperdal, an anti-psychotic medication used for bipolar disorder. Side effects can include tremors, fever, confusion, trouble swallowing and weight gain.
And the final option is nothing. We can leave it alone. The side effects include increasing unbalanced seratonin level, poor brain function, irritability, increased fatigue, sleepiness and increased stimming behavior.
As a parent, I am not sure what to do. I do not want my daughter on drugs or any substance, but I know sleep deprivation is very dangerous and detrimental to her condition and her ability to learn. I wish there was a simple answer.
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Comments (3)
aww, that's terrible. i'm not sure if this is the same thing but my roommate has trouble getting to sleep AND staying asleep because she's such a light sleeper. but her parents found this list of stuff she has to follow before sleeping. i don't know if this will work on your babygirl though: go outside for 15 minutes a day; no naps; don't do any physical activities up to 3 hours before bed; no stimulating food up to 3 hours before bed; no liquids up to 2 hours before bed; 1/2 hour wind down routine/process. mind you, i don't know anything about babies and sleep. i most certainly don't have a degree in anything. just merely passing by and giving my advice :) good luck with ava!!!!! cute name btw
My son, who is 10, does not sleep at all, unless sedated. He currently gets both clonodine and trazadone (and old antidepressent) to fall asleep and stay asleep for at least four hours. (We did melotonin for a long time, but he had problems with "activation" as our neurologist put it. That means he would wake up a wild man, filled with the will and energy to move furniture.) Sometimes now he sleeps all night. It is a horrible disability, the inability to fall or stay asleep.
I take some confort in the fact that the new Autism Treatment Network is taking the problem seriously and looking at it first. Sadly, their first work involved "sleep hygene," as if parents had never tried providing a mellow evening leading up to bed time and creating a dark and quiet enivronment for a bedroom. Duh. I spent years -- yes, that is years, not days -- in a dark room with a toddler who can have a major party in the dark for as long as you can take it.
Let's see some research on the physical basis for this disability, thanks very much.
She sounds like me lately (and for about half my life). There was something I read recently about helping to reset a screwed up internal clock. It has to do with light early in the morning when the person is supposed to be waking up, and darkness when they are supposed to be going to sleep. I forget what it is called, but it is done without the use of drugs, except sometimes they use like a half-dose of melatonin to help the body recognize what it needs.