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Arlo
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02 Nov 2014, 9:33 pm

You could also try salt crystal lamps.



Colbey
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03 Nov 2014, 12:09 am

Maybe give him a mild mental challenge with no definite end point?

Lately I've been mentally squaring numbers if I can't get to sleep. ( 13*13=169, 14^2=196..... 54^2=2916.....) It can keep random thoughts from cycling through my head, some of which can get distracting when trying to sleep.

I don't know what level of math he's at (or 12 year-olds in general) but you may be surprised how much he is capable of when he isn't distracted.



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03 Nov 2014, 2:56 am

I don't know if this is going to come off as horrifically inhumane or whatever, but have you tried locking his bedroom door or doing other things to ensure he can't escape? Would he hurt himself if left alone in his room? It would at least spare you from having to clean up the rest of the house every night, and might block out some of the noise so your other kids can sleep. Is there anything apart from physical movement that preoccupies him for long periods of time that you could provide as a distraction before shutting him in? You said he likes bouncing on a trampoline; would a small one in his room be enough to keep him from trying to escape?


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Campin_Cat
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03 Nov 2014, 3:07 pm

As for the snack, fruit has a TON of sugar----not refined, obviously, but still, that doesn't seem like a good thing----but, you're giving it to him at the right time (2 hours before bed). A half a turkey sandwich would be GREAT (triptophan). As for aroma therapy, I have used lavender to help me get to sleep----it works, really well!! Another type of tea to consider is "Sleepy Time" tea, made by "Bigelow".

I'm thinking it might be his meds that are making him so hyper. Sooooo many medicines have caffeine in them, and / or other things that can act as a stimulant in different people. His Doctor may not know what meds have what. Different people react differently, and since you said he is lactose-intolerant (as am I), he could be sensitive to lots of other stuff. I'm the kind of person that is always in that "very rare, but may occur" column on those papers they give you with the meds. Have you read those papers? They might have the answer, right there.

Has he been hyper his entire 12 years? Can you remember how he was before the meds? Isolating which one, may be a real task, though, depending on how many he's on.





funeralxempire
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03 Nov 2014, 3:58 pm

Campin_Cat wrote:
A half a turkey sandwich would be GREAT (triptophan).


Fun fact, turkey doesn't contain significantly more tryptophan than other common meats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan#Dietary_sources


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04 Nov 2014, 11:55 pm

LtlPinkCoupe- yeah, he has loads and loads of stuffed animals. He likes to pile them up or have them piled up on top of him.

Colbey- hmm that's interesting. His receptive and expressive language skills both seem to be severely lagging behind his actual ability. He occasionally surprises us by doing something remarkable, but if we had asked him to do it, there's no way he'd have done it. I'm not sure if he'd understand or think about a problem that I posed to him.

StarTrekker- not horrifically inhumane, but slightly unsafe (his dad is very paranoid about fires starting so I would never get away with locking "his"* kid in a room- fire risk), and also he sometimes goes to the bathroom at night and he smears poo sometimes (in the bathroom at least). I'd be most displeased if he smeared poo in his bedroom and I think that's a real possibility if I locked him in.
*I put quotation marks because although the kid IS his kid, he's also my kid, and I thought if I just wrote "his kid" it sounded like he wasn't related to me, since I'm the one writing. Just wasn't sure how to word that...

Campin_Cat- true about fruit. Sorry, I meant to type that he's NOT lactose intolerant but still has some sort of reaction to it either way.
My son was considered a completely typically developing baby until 9mos. Literally nothing was amiss. Seizures began at 9mos (meds were introduced then)- which is an age when it is perfectly normal to not sleep through the night and be quite energetic (they're just starting to walk and have full mobility)...so while those aspects WERE present, they were not abnormal. He appeared to "regress into autism" (forgive the wording) around the same time that the sleeping became abnormal for his age (the sleeping never changed, but his age changed). This to say: it's very hard to distinguish what caused what. It could be medications but those have been switched around too...it's just a mess of many factors!


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LtlPinkCoupe
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05 Nov 2014, 12:05 am

WelcomeToHolland wrote:
LtlPinkCoupe- yeah, he has loads and loads of stuffed animals. He likes to pile them up or have them piled up on top of him.


But the stuffed animals (and having all of them piled on top of him) don't seem to have the effect of helping him settle down for the night?

I just thought of something else - is there something about bedtime, his room, or being alone that he finds scary or unsettling? When I was younger (before my dad and stepmom moved to a new house) my bedroom had these really poorly-installed windows that rattled and shuddered eerily during thunderstorms, which frightened me and made me want to go sleep in my parents' room - it sounded to me like someone was trying to break through the windows and get at me. 8O I also hated it when I found a spider in my room....I would end up having to sleep on a couch or in my dad's study (even after the spider had been disposed of) for at least a week afterward until I was sure there weren't any more left in my room.

Does he have any fears that nighttime/bedtime causes?


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05 Nov 2014, 1:24 am

WelcomeToHolland wrote:
TLupaLuna- sadly he doesn't like white noise at all. I used to try to keep a dehumidifier in his room (for the purpose of dehumidifying, not white noise) and he would switch it off repeatedly... same with a fan..


You may want to know that a dehumidifier has a refrigeration unit in it, and it's compressor can make a low pitch rumbling sound. You may not notice this sound but it could easily drive your son nuts. If you haven't try a fan yet. i would try it and see what happens.

BTW: There may be a "fan only" setting on your dehumidifier. Try setting it to that and see how your son reacts.



katedidit
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06 Nov 2014, 6:37 pm

Is he overtired?

I tend to get hyper and have a hard time falling asleep if I don't catch my "window." Then I get into a horrible cycle that is hard to get out of.



voleregard
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06 Nov 2014, 8:18 pm

If it were me, I'd be looking to reduce the electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to as near zero as possible. Even in houses away from smart meters or cell towers, I will feel almost a buzzing in my nervous system because there is so much ambient EMF now. I've been in one house with smart meter and couldn't even sleep in the house. People who don't feel these things can't imaging the tormenting discomfort these fields cause.

The EMF can put a body in a reactive, fight/flight state and unable to relax at the cellular level and interfere with normal biological processes like thinking and sleeping. One practitioner explained a severe response as like having your brain on fire.

Might try looking at a whole-house unit like a Memon, or something less expensive like EarthCalm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EGsaC2ridA or take a look at options: www.cutcat.com or www.lessemf.com. Maybe call a rep and tell them your situation and see if they'll let you try something out for a few days to see if it has any effect. (Stetzer Filters may not be a good choice based on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TlJuQte3jQ)

Good suggestions about avoiding gluten. I'd include artificial colors/flavors. My understanding is that protein is best for pre-bed snacks. I've just found some very good soaked-dried almonds. Unsoaked nuts have an inhibitory enzyme phytic acid which can cause digestion issues if still on the nuts when consumed: http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topi ... ytic-acid/

You might find something useful in this essential oils thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6271255.html



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06 Nov 2014, 10:37 pm

LtlPinkCoupe- maybe the stuffed animals help a little bit, not sure. He just likes it, I know that. He is an anxious kid, but with limited communication skills it's hard for me to know exactly what is scary. My husband was a very anxious kid (more so than our kid is even) and he has brainstormed on this subject, thinking maybe the closet is scary, so we have tried leaving it open and having it closed, also maybe the dark is scary, so we've had fairly bright night lights and then no light at all (we found the small amount of light from glow-in-the-dark things maximise sleep), etc. It's something we've put thought into, but it's hard to know without him being able to express it.

LupaLuna- huh, that's good to know about the dehumidifier!

katedidit- well I can't imagine how he could possibly not be over-tired with the amount he sleeps, but he doesn't really seem to be based on his level of activity... That's interesting about the "window"- maybe it's something like that. Sigh.

voleregard- thanks, I will look into that.


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EzraS
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06 Nov 2014, 11:30 pm

I have classic autism and this is what has helped me. A white noise machine. The room being kept cold in the summer. Lavender scent on my pillow. A hug pillow. A combination of L-tryptophan, melatonin and valerian. That in addition to stuff you already do.



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29 May 2015, 4:55 pm

I wanted to update as some things have changed. His sleeping hasn't though and I think it may never change, but I guess we'll never stop trying... He's 13 now. And he got a new diagnosis. He still has autism but they have discovered that the type of epilepsy he has is called dravet syndrome, and poor sleeping is listed as a common symptom of that also…so…this may really be utterly hopeless… :wall:

I moved him to another room. He hates changes like that so I didn't want to, but then I thought maybe it would be worth it later (now he's used to it, but it hasn't made much of a difference). Now his room is very small and has no windows. So now there aren't any street sounds, and it's even darker (that's the whole point of moving him here). I also a bought a black canopy for his bed- when that's down, it's pitch black in there. I got a white noise machine. I got some lavender spray stuff for his pillow. He has a weighted blanket (has for a while but I can't find where if I ever mentioned that before).

Funny that EzraS mentioned needing a cold room in the summer… he actually has heat-triggered seizures, so it really does not to be fairly cold in his room. It always is because he does have a physical reaction to being over approx 25*C.

We tried epsom salt and he had an allergic reaction! It gave him a rash and his body was all puffy.. 8O So that's out. We are trying to transition into doing the ketoenic diet for epilepsy. As a result, we're not going to remove things for the possible salicylic sensitivity thing at the moment. Some of it overlaps though because we're getting rid of ALL sugar including fruit.

Snacks: I haven't been giving him fruit, he usually gets something avocado, plain yoghurt, chickpeas, etc. He still has it at 7pm because we usually eat dinner at 5:30 so to have a snack before 7 is not really necessary, not to mention the fact that he never sleeps at 9 anyway.

Also, sort of interesting thing: a while ago now, he had mono, and he was really lethargic but the weird thing was, he still didn't sleep for longer than 4 hours. It's like he cannot sleep longer than 4 hours. Why would that be? He could hardly even walk around the block at one point, but he still would sleep around 3.5 hours, then cry for a while, maybe get up, etc., and fall asleep about an hour later. So weird.


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