I wish my daughter would sleep
For two weeks – thirteen days to be exact – we had uninterrupted sleep for at least 8 hours a night. It was heaven. Glorious. I started to feel human again.
And Ava was not on any medication. I was taking her to the pool every day – or letting her go in the baby pool on my deck. She loves the water. She adores the water. She is so calm, so happy, so content when she is in the water. I even get her to float on her back, as long as she feels me supporting her.
And on the fourteenth day, she was up from 2am – 6am – as were we. She slept through the night the next night – and since, has been up during the night. Last night it was from 2am – 5am.
We sleep in the same room as she does. So she wakes up and sees us. She whines for us to come get her. When I go to her, she is stimming uncontrollably. She babbles nonsense, as if talking in tongues. She tenses her fists and jumps up and down (her typical stimming behavior). She tries to lay down, but cannot relax because her body is stimming. I know she is frustrated. She finally succumbs to sleep when her body has had enough. You don’t know how my heart breaks for her.
After she finally settles down to sleep, she will sleep another 3 – 4 hours. However I have to wake her for therapy. She is then tired, cranky and groggy and the whole day is shot. I try so hard to get her into a sleep schedule, but to no avail. It is a constant game of catch-up.
I wish my daughter would sleep. Not just for her, but for the sanity of her parents. It is so hard to function on little sleep.
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I completely understand. I’ve often joked that my daughter is the reincarnated spirit of Allan Pinkerton – he never slept either.
This has been going on since she was a newborn. 9/11 happened two weeks after her birth and I considered myself the most well informed mom in the US because I was up all night with her watching CNN. She generally sleeps from about 9-1 or 2 am, stays up for hours going on all sixteen cylinders, then passes out just in time to wake up for school. We have her on Melatonin now, which is kind of a hit or miss. Some nights are good, many of them aren’t. My daughter is the first person I have ever known to be immune to Melatonin.
I wish you the best of luck. Would it help if I told you that someone from KKI recently told me they eventually grow out of it?
My boy isn´t autistic but was never good sleeping. I bought a baby monitor.
If you can keep her down on her bed and go to your bed to take a nap, watching her with a baby monitor.
Sometimes, if she stays quiet just a little it can give you both some rest.
I wish you both the best.
It is a shame you can’t simply work around her natural sleep schedule instead of “forcing” her to be awake during the day and sleep at night. I’m not saying this condemningly at all… it is truly suckish that the whole world expects every person in it to be awake during the day and sleep at night. Personally, I sleep best from about between 3am-9am and from 3pm-6pm… but real life doesn’t let me do that.
{{{hugs}}}}}}
I wish I could think of some kind of advice to give you. My son doesn’t have autism, but he has never been much of a sleeper, so I feel you on the lack of sleep.