Changing His Sleep…

Sleep? What is sleep? I sometimes feel it’s like a revolving door here between the three boys as to who’s turn it is to be up during the night. Our saga with sleep started with Alley though. I honestly cannot remember one night he slept through before he was three wars old. We went through three years straight of not sleeping through the night. Can you imagine? We were walking crabs!

I distinctly remember for years straight we would drive Alley at 1:00, 2:00 or even 3:00 in the morning to soothe him. No this wasn’t a “phase” or the baby stage where it’s just one or two nights of this because they are sick or teething. This was almost every single night. He didn’t know how to soothe himself and we were not soothing enough for him. We tried everything! His naps were mainly in his swing as a baby until he was too big size wise and the swing wouldn’t move anymore. It seemed that he was most comfortable moving constantly. The swing and car were basically our only options. It was hard. It was hard on my husband who would help overnight and then go to work the next day. It was hard on me to do my share and then have to wake up before the birds with Alley for the day. At this point we had lost all hope on sleep. We felt like broken records to people who would ask about our sleep saga because it was always the same answer. And you can tell, people listened but they didn’t actually hear us at this point, they were over it as were we. You can’t possibly know how hard that is physically and mentally until you go through it.

As he grew a little more at a time his sleep seemed to settle down in spurts but it was never consistent. Kids with Autism are beyond sensitive to every single aspect of their life. The littlest cold would set us into a tail spin of not sleeping for weeks. It’s literally the never ending experiment. At this point we had seen doctors. His Developmental Pediatrician told us to use melatonin and same with his regular Pediatrician. So again, we listened to the medical professionals. It always seems that Alley reacts differently then the medical professionals anticipate to their suggestions and that has just been the story on him. We should have known melatonin would be no different for us. He could not sleep. We tried it multiple times and with different doses but nothing seem to help. He would fall asleep easier, that is where it did help. But he would wake up every night scared, almost panicked and we could not understand why. Was the melatonin doing this to him? Is he at a stage in development that his dreams are scary? And because he cannot tell us verbally, it’s all an excruciating guessing game. We again were at a loss. It just seemed like everything we tried while listening to our doctors we love and trust, were still coming up short. It was heartbreaking because he was exhausted, crabby and getting sick all the time. This is what happens when we was don’t get adequate sleep. It was a very vicious cycle and nobody was happy.

At the start of this year, we again breached another sleep cycle regression along with aggressive behaviors. He would wake in the middle of the night and just be out of his mind with anger. His two little brothers would hear him and of course they were terrified of what was happening, waking up to loud screaming. We all were. I started out doing some of my own digging and researching. So many articles point toward melatonin, but no thanks been there done that, not for us. It might be work amazingly for some kids, which is fantastic! But again, not our journey. The more digging, reading and searching my husband and I did we came across a magnesium lotion. What?! A lotion that helps sleeping?! I read the reviews on Amazon but still sounded too good to be true. No way. I did not believe it at first. But I asked some questions in other groups for special needs children and there was this one mom who knew what I was talking about. One mom out of like 65,000 in this group. She said they use it and love it! To us, if he’s not ingesting more supplements (which his body has a hard time digesting appropriately anyway) then a topical lotion on his feet might be a good route for us. It turns out it was a life saver! We love this lotion.

Yes, he will have nights where we wakes up at a crazy early time but we are seeing big big big improvements in that department. This lotion is found on Amazon. He’s a happier kid because he’s actually sleeping and resting! Who wouldn’t be? I also stumbled across a room spray that is by an essential oil company. I spray it on all my kids’ pillows at night and even my own. I have noticed a much deeper sleep for myself and the boys. Again, a win win for everyone! The picture attached has both the lotion and the room spray. If this could help one person that has a similar sleep saga, I will be ecstatic! Never stop digging to get an answer that fits your needs.

With grace-

This Autism Mama