Aspergers child with NT sibling - interaction and bedrooms

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Any advice would be appreciated...my older child is diagnosed with Aspergers (he is 4) and has a younger sibling who is NT (1 year old). The little one adores my older one and wants to play, talk, follow my son around, get his attention, etc. I understand my son doesn't want this interaction and is uncomfortable with it. My little one feels confused and sad - she is 1 year old. Perhaps my son will interact more when she is older, can talk more and can play the things he enjoys. I wonder how to honor his space and feelings and be mindful of her desire to socialize. Also, I was wondering if anybody has had success with siblings sharing a room? The little one is in my room now, but we were thinking of bunk beds in my sons room. However, this is his special alone space where he can close the door, but we don't have another bedroom. Thanks!

Disclosure: I answer sibling questions oddly because I have an only child and my perspective is colored by the fact that I was an older sib who felt most of the time, pretty resentful of how my parents handled sibling issues.

I am going to guess you might get answers about how to facilitate the interaction you want because it is what parents of siblings want, They want the siblings to be close growing up, and it is one of those things I intellectually understanding trying to promote, though I don't understand forcing the issue when one of the sibs does not want it, with the reasoning that he will appreciate it later, or something like that, that may never happen, and is a parental hope. I also get feeling sad for the one-year old, who is not going to understand any kind of explanation.

That said, if your older child needs his space, I think he ought to get it, to the best of your ability to provide it. He is likely to need his space more and more as school and social demands become more challenging. He will likely need it to recover.

I was forced to share a bedroom, partly b/c of space reasons and partially b/c my sibling wanted to sleep with my parents and my parents felt like they could fix it by relocating said sibling to my room to fix the loneliness factor. i resented the heck out of it. If it were exclusively space (they had space, but liked being able to re-purpose it) I might have been a bit understanding.

Obviously, if you have no other choice, you don't; but I expect you are going to need to make other accommodations at some point b/c no way an older NT girl is going to want to share a room with her autistic (or any) brother, anyway --and her friends will think it is weird.

Thank you for your input. I plan to keep the little one in our bedroom until we figure out something that works. My older one goes to preschool 2 days and definately needs to recover after those days, so you have a great point...Kindergarten will be 5 full days next year. We will eventually need to move, but were trying to avoid it because it will mean switching schools for my son and the change of a new house, new neighborhood, etc. I was hoping to wait until after elementary school was completed.

More specifically, any advice on what my older one can do when his sister gives him unwanted attention? He is not able to ignore her, he wants to be near me and he doesn't want to go upstairs alone.

I was hoping someone who had more than one child would post before I posted a guess of a suggestion. I think you need to keep them both occupied (somehow) and I am not sure how to do that with a one year old an autistic child.

Both a one-year old and an autistic pre-schooler are going to need a lot of attention. Autistic kids benefit greatly from floor play with the parent and of course a one-year old also needs interaction for development. Maybe if you can get them to parallel play near each other and you can take turns with each one, but that sounds exhausting.

So, that is why I was waiting for someone else to post, as this is really terrible non-advice, but I did not want you to think I was ignoring you.

My nephews are the same age - 4 and 1 - they have the exact same dynamic. Little one wants nothing more than to spend time with the big one. Big one doesn't want him messing up his stuff. Little dude is just too young to do anything fun. They are both NT, although older brother is, shall we say, an intense personality.

So, I'm not sure this one is really about your older son being ASD. This is just siblings being siblings. Their ages are way to far apart right now for them to be friends. Fortunatly, in my brother's house, the little is a pretty chill personality. He doesn't cry when we pull him away from his brother. He just smiles and tries again. Over and over and over. They are really giving their mom a workout.

It's a tough case, with the bedrooms. I suspect that you wouldn't be thinking about doing bunk beds at all if you didn't have to. We can't just wave a magic wand and make a 3rd bedroom appear. But my opinion is that in general, your ASD kiddo's need for private space is going to be WAY more prominent than average. I had my own bedroom as a child and thank GOD! My NT younger brother tortured me enough as it is without sharing a space. He just wouldn't stop. I remember sending myself to bed early because I just didn't want to deal with his goofing off at bedtime. He's still a very dominant personality. We would have killed eachother if we didn't have our own space.

My advice would be to get creative and find some way of getting your older son a private space, even if its not a whole bedroom. I have one young friend who got the cupboard below the stairs. Just like Harry Potter. She LOVES it.