Hi, my name is Kay1013! My son has autism, and I'm struggling with his sleep

Kay1013

Hi

Sandy_123

Hi @Kay1013 welcome to the forum 

janer1967

Hi and welcome to the community 

Feel free to join in or ask any questions 

chiarieds

Hi @Kay1013 - & welcome to this community from me also. How are you, & do you have any questions?

Kay1013

My son is 4 years old and he is autistic and don't sleep well at all wakes alot in the night or will wake at 3am/ 4am and stay up till 8pm and my sister today told me I should call our gp and get him something to sleep and I'm scared too as I would feel like I'm drugging my son i don't know what to do 

chiarieds

This must be so very difficult for you. May I recommend that Scope has a programme that helps parents called 'Navigate,' which I've heard excellent things about. Please see: https://www.scope.org.uk/family-services/navigate/  There's also other resources mentioned here: https://www.scope.org.uk/family-services/

You might also consider, if you haven't done so: https://www.autism.org.uk/

Do follow your instincts, rather than looking at such prescribed meds for your son. Please know that you can also chat here absolutely any time you wish; we'll all try to support you.

Tori_Scope

Welcome to the community @Kay1013 Thanks for posting, and for sharing a bit about your information.

It's understandable that you'd have concerns over giving your son medication to help him sleep. It's important to remember that there's no shame in this, though.

Your GP may be able to suggest other treatments aside from medication. I can see that chiarieds has already pointed you towards our family services, which may be of help. These include:

• Navigate: this may be useful if your son has been diagnosed within the past year
• Sleep Right: you can access this if you live in London, Leeds, Northamptonshire, or Peterborough
• Parents Connect: might help you you feel as though you could benefit from speaking to other parents in a similar position

Even if you don't live in London, Leeds, Northamptonshire, or Peterborough, you can still benefit from Sleep Right's expert advice by listening to their podcast episodes. You can access these for free here.

Perhaps you could give the podcast episodes a listen and see what you think?

NickD

Hi Kay, we're in the same boat as you, further along as our son is 10. There are some so-so solutions. We were prescribed Melatonin (both immediate and slow release), which simply replaces what the body is meant to produce naturally. That gets our son off to sleep some of the time, but can make him worse in the middle of the night when we wakes up, so we gave up. We've had some success with anti-histamines, which are mild meds mainly intended for hay fever and such-like, that have drowsiness as a side-effect. There's an over the counter one called Piriton which has helped. Only thing is, people can become tolerant to it, so don't use it all the time or it'll stop working. A break from it can make it work again apparently. We were recommended all this by the paedetrician, probably you'd get similar advice. I wouldn't worry too much about it being "drugging" him, doctors/nurses seem to happily take these themselves when messed up from night shifts, and constant sleep deprivation is horrendous, and potentially dangerous in itself. Can't deny its tough, especially at this time of year with long daylight. One other thing we've done is go for walk in evening, let him stay up and go to bed late that way he sleeps through better. Good luck , Nick