How do I get him out of bed in the morning?

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My 13-year-old son is very difficult to get moving in the morning. He will stay in bed, getting irritated every time I say, "Come on, get up." So we start our days out very grumpy and running late. He will complain that he didn't sleep well, etc. (He doesn't seem to understand that other people frequently feel like that in the morning, and get up anyway. When I tell him this, he whines that he REALLY didn't sleep well!)

Help!!
Wendi

When is he falling asleep? Many of those with AS do not follow the internal clock that most humans follow and as such, he may be getting only 4 hours sleep. To top it all off, most teens (NT & AS) have weird internal clocks that go against the grain of society.

He may be telling you the truth but has no way to explain what is truly going on.

I doubt I would get my son out of bed until late afternoon if we didn't have melatonin. It is not uncommon for those of us on the spectrum to have irregular circadian rhythms and difficulty sleeping due to a lack of the hormone production of melatonin. At 13, teenage hormones can also cause changes to sleep patterns. Also anxiety can keep you from sleeping. It might be worth trying to find solutions to his sleeplessness to sort out the problem of getting up in the morning. The feeling of exhaustion and bad sleep can make the waking moods more irritable. Maybe you could discuss his inability to sleep with his doctor. Good luck.

My son frequently has difficulty falling asleep, so we've done a couple of things: he goes to sleep using a relaxation CD (it came free with a hotel stay once, but you can find that sort of thing easily for free on the internet - look for the ones that offer muscle relaxation e.g. squeeze then release, breathe in & out etc.)

We then set up the following structure:

We set an alarm for him for an hour before he has to get up. He can sleep through the first snooze. The second snooze, he has to get up, get dressed and brush his teeth. If he seems too tired to get up, we just let him sleep for an extra half an hour, but then he misses out on his morning half-hour of TV. If he succeeds, he gets a half-hour TV show before breakfast.

I've told him that if I find him awake playing or reading or otherwise not resting at night, I will turn off the alarm and he will not get TV, but will have to go right to getting up & dressed. (We've told him that if he can't sleep, he should just rest quietly and pretend to sleep: we made clear that we know he can't control the actual sleeping part, which was a concern.) He has a ridiculously early bedtime for a 10yo: 8-8:30pm - but I found that while on some nights he's awake quite a while and not tired later, during the school year he really needs the sleep.

If your son is autistic, not having proper sleep will probably be a lot worse on him than the average person. I know I function absolutely awful if I do not sleep right. I would suggest melatonin.

I've been sleeping lousy, until I've started taking melatonin. That stuff really works.

This may have absolutely nothing to do with the spectrum and everything to do with adolescence.

At this stage in his physical development he is spending vast amounts of energy on growth and development. This, coupled with the freedom to have a later bedtime pushes the challenge into the morning hours.

That being said, sleep disorders do exist, and they are very difficult to diagnose and to treat. If your son is having difficulty getting enough sleep, it may be worth having a chat with your GP, and getting a referral to a sleep specialist.

If it's just adolescence, what worked for my NT son was to tell him he could set his bedtime so long as he got himself out of bed. If I have to wake him up, I set the bedtime. It worked like a charm.

I got fed up with the fight.

Now, I don't think that will work with my other guy. He is so delayed, he still wants me to lay down with him to fall asleep, so he's not yet ready to set a bedtime.

Hmmm... A 13yo boy... Do you happen to have a foghorn to wire to his alarm clock? Make sure to put the switch to turn it off near the shower.... Don't forget to wear earplugs to bed, and when you go in to shake him because the foghorn still isn't working....

Clocky, or the Flying Alarm Clock have always seemed like good ideas to me...haven't tried them, though.

More seriously, I've always wondered if one of these would work.

I can relate. I litteraly could not fall alseep at night and litteraly lied in bed for hours and would eventulaly fall alseep around five in the morning from sheer exhaustion. I couldn't function at all because I was so tired. I was often sick from lack of sleep (I would even vomit). Melatonion took hours to take effect (I would have to take it at six in the afternoon) and only put me to sleep for like half an hour and then the same thing happened all over again. Alarm clocks or yelling "Time to get up!" made my body go tense and I litteraly could not move.

Focus more on getting to sleep at an earlier time and keeping that schedule, especially on weekends and summer breaks. Getting up will be a lot easier.

At night, try an audio book on low volume with the lights turned off; it helps with focus and relaxation and getting to sleep. Aspies tend to think too much and this will put their brain in a more passive mode. Also, any physical exercise during the day helps.

In the morning, you might have to resort to carrying them to the sofa and turning on a favorite cartoon. It will act as an alarm clock and encourage them to stay awake instead of falling back asleep. Unfortunately, kids get heavy as they get older.

Good luck, I know waking up can be a real struggle. I deal with it daily with my aspie son.

Could be diet! The night before has everything to do with what happens the following morning - caffeine, sweets, too many carbs that cause him to be unable to get moving. Growth simply exhausts them also. Does he complain of leg pains (thigh area)? My son who is eleven lifts 5 pound weights before bedtime after homework and this knocks him right out.
A warm cup of whole milk works well too... or his favorite breakfast and a bullhorn.

He is lured out of bed. We use his fav shake & resort to tickling.Works for us.