autism,sleeping issues?

Post Reply New Topic

is that a normal thing with autism?

(also quick note, thanks to everyone for helping me feel welcome on the "not welcome here" post )

..
if ive had a over exiteded day like going to,for example toys r us with over £100 spending money and looking at all the toys.

or going to a super market and trying to focus on things

or going to lots of places or doing lots of things in one day or alot going on in one day or getting somthing i realy wanted in the post.

etc.. i find it realy hard to i thnk the word is "wind down" or "relax" .

most nights i dont go to bed until about 4 or 5 am because i cant "wind down" or "relax"

but recently i got a new quilt which isnt speacial its just genral quilt and it is kind of heavy so i get to sleep faster now when in bed. i have it inside a spongebob bedsheet which i guess is a bit overstimulating here is a picture of it http://fav.me/d4n7j3s (tell me if the link dosnt work, click it to see picture) i also got pillows that are soft (i didnt have pillows before that, i used to just use a folded bath towel) .

also is it normal that in my head im realy childish like i mean i want to buy little kid toys and baby toys all the time ad somtimes when im looking at them in shopping it gets me stimming

A lot of autistic people have sleeping issues, like not being able to fall asleep at night, waking up a lot through the night, and not being able to stick to a normal sleep schedule or a 24-hour rhythm. I have a lot of problems falling asleep at night, because I am always overstimulated. Recently, the weather has been cold, so my mother gave me a really heavy blanket to put on top of my quilt and light blanket, and I discovered that I fall asleep much faster with the heavy blanket. If I sit in bed and play on my iPad, I feel sleepy much earlier with the heavy blanket. I used to not be able to sleep until 3 or 4 am, but for the past few nights, I have been falling asleep at 1 or 2 am, and I actually feel sleepy in bed, which is not normal for me.

I have a weird sleep pattern, it ranges from 1am-11am to 5am-2pm but bedtimes before 1am are really hard for me. I also need 9-10 hours a night. I need a cold room and a heavy duvet and am really sensitive about the mattress and pillow. Oh, and need a hot water bottle on my lower back, even in hot weather (but my Dad is like this too and is NT). So you are not alone

I need heavy blankets to fall asleep. I have problems with being wound up too--I self medicate with weed because it makes me drowsy, but that's obviously not a solution for everyone. Same with a glass of wine or a beer before bed.

I have a good friend who I'm pretty sure is on the spectrum, who has problems with being too wound up to fall asleep. No prescription meds were ever effective for her and she's a 24/7 stoner so that was out of the question. She ended up using a valerian root tincture. Personally just drinking valerian tea is enough to knock me out, but she needed a higher dosage so she used the tincture for about 3 years.

I tend to sleep about 16 hours a day, but I can't fall asleep in the very early hours of the morning.

I have sleeping issues too and stay awake for a long time in the night (in my time now it is 2 in the morning).
When I was a child I had matraces under my bed in the size of 80x50x30 an they were quite heavy and I used to take them out and put one on the floor and I layed down on it and my brother had to put one onto me and go on top of it, so I would be squeezed between the matraces. I needed it to relax and I like the idea of a "heavy blanket", so I will try it.
I just don't know, what a "heavy blanket" is, I mean, what is in the inside?

I would to experiment with the combination of both a heavier, weightier blanket and keeping my room cooler.

(difficult since my dad likes the house warm)

My fibromyalgia keeps pressure from being soothing to me. I've had sleeping issues since before I was diagnosed, though. I can't remember not having them. Now I have the added complication of dealing with night sweats from perimenopause. I'll be glad when that lets up!

I add a *LOT* of sleeping issues when I was a youngster. Started with nightmares/night terrors. Drove the parental units crazy for over a year. That quietted down a bit, but something at school started it up again. Also, have slept walked before.
Biggest issue is insomnia, but mostly I use Benadryl or Tylenol PM at night (plus I take Lyrica for non-related physical issues) so I sleep better.
One other oddity, I never needed an Alarm Clock in Grade School. I just woke up exactly when I wanted/needed to. Always.

Sincerely,
Matt

Don't some of the heavy blankets have metal in them?

I've slept anywhere from 8 hrs or maybe even 12. My parents hate I sleep so,long and think I'm lazy since OMG! I slept from 11pm-11am OMG!

I've had insomnia since I was really young. Tried medications, but they never helped. Taking Gravol makes me sleepy, though. I'd rather not have to rely on it all the time to sleep, though. Even these days, if I go to sleep earlier than 2-3 AM, I won't sleep properly. I'll wake up multiple times in the night, and then at some point I will be unable to go back to sleep. It's terrible. Doctors insist that I make myself get up super early, but I always stay up late the next day if I try to sleep, or the same thing will happen if I force myself to sleep early. I hate it.

One thing that helped me was getting a heavy duvet. I got a feather duvet, rather than down, so it'd be just as warm but substantially heavier. And I get high thread count sheets so I'm not distracted by the texture of the sheets. Really warm too. Pillows on my feet are nice. I'm really picky about the temperature, and I prefer wearing long sleeved shirts to bed, so it's hard to find the right temperature for my room.

I've also had insomnia since I was young. For some reason it seemed worse in high school, then better in college, then worse again once I started living on my own. But then I pulled a lot of all-nighters in college, so it is not like I had normal sleeping patterns.

I think my problems relate to my mind never stopping. It keeps on going in overdrive when I go to bed. Even when I wake up, it is hard to get back to sleep. And I have the same problem "winding down" - I too often can't sleep until 4 am.

Me, too. I often feel too wound up to get to sleep any time early.

Now, recently I have been re-reading the autobiography of President Gerald Ford A Time to Heal. The first time through it was a challenging book, much of which I disagree with, so it was not restful at all. I decided to re-read it back to the summit meeting Ford has with Brezhnev. And this second time through, it feels familiar, I think Jerry a pretty good guy even though I might disagree with him, he almost feels like a friend.

I tried this before, re-reading a book I've gotten a lot out of. And I can't really fake it. I think it has to be book I genuinely want to read again. Although perhaps I can "dance it" so to speak, try it out and see if it takes.

Wow! The more I read in this forum the more everything fits me.

I have always had trouble sleeping. Even as a young child. I normally am not ready to go to sleep till way past daylight. I rather a day scedual so I try and try to straighten it out. Sometimes I am successful for a couple of weeks or so, but it never fails, I end up back on nightshift (as I call it).

If I try to force myself to go to bed at a decent hour, I will toss and turn and my mind will run a hundred miles an hour. Some times it helps to pretend I am laying in a raft in the middle of the ocean, or something but most of the time, no.

Yesterday morning, way past daylight, I was still up. Then it got to be around 3:00 PM, I decided to just make myself stay up so, I could go to sleep at a decent time, and get back on dayshift. As usually happens, I fell alseep around 8:PM I woke up at 1:00 AM bright eyed and bushy tailed. I usually need between 8 and 12 hours sleep, but sure enough (most of the time), if I go to sleep at and earlly evening time, I will wake up between 3 and 5 hours later. I freekin give up.

I have worked night shift in the past for this very reason. My spychiatrist says that people tend to get jobs that are better for their sleep patterns. Years ago, I was diagnosed as bipolar but think it was a misdiagnosis. Even my psychiatrist does not feel that I am bi-polar. I have not disgussed the possability of Asperger's with him yet though. Next visit, I am though.

What is even more frustrating, is when I am on dayshift, and I get really comfortable and calm, and know I will be able to sleep well, I often will get restless leg syndrom. I can't seem to win for losing. I wonder if that is an Asperger's thing that being as my body is relaxed at a sleep time that my body is not use to, my leg muscles can't relax.

So annoying and miserable some times.