Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Sleep Patterns.
Sleep, what sleep!
In some way I guess the Autism affected their sleep patterns and they didn't do much sleeping at night.
They kind of took turns at sleeping which made for very little sleep for us.
John, who has the ADHD in addition, would only sleep for 3-4 hours at a time. Somehow Nathan would wait until he woke up to start his sleep.
This went on for a couple of years and try as we might, we could not get John to have a full nights sleep.
During this time, one day when the family was watching a Disney movie together, John got up and left the bedroom. He was about 3 1/2 at the time.
My husband went to check to see where he was and came back yelling for me.
The kitchen was filling with smoke.
John had turned the stove on and knocked a box onto the element which had caught fire. He then had grabbed a shirt, I think to put the fire out but that had caught fire too.
The flames were licking up the cupboard and onto the ceiling.
I turned off the stove, grabbed John and rushed him to the bedroom with the other kids and then came back to the kitchen and got a wet towel.
I told Paul to grab the extinguisher from the garage, which he did and proceeded to use.
We finally got it out and were very lucky with the small amount of damage that we had as opposed to what could have happened.
We decided that we needed to place a sturdy gate between the lounge room and the kitchen area which could be closed when we needed to.
Also, at night time because the potential of one of the kids wandering out the door if they woke up and we had fallen asleep was growing.
We live next to a train track and it fascinates the boys.
One of my friends sells 4 Life products and she suggested the Riovida which contains Transfer Factor which I was coming across more and more in my research on Autism.
So, I ordered some and, no joke, within a week, John started sleeping from 10pm to approx 7am.
It is completely herbal, I wasn't prepared for the difference this made to us.
Without John to wake him at intervals, Nathan started sleeping better too.
Their moods improved a little as they weren't so tired.
Boy what a difference.
At last, we were able to get some sleep!
In some way I guess the Autism affected their sleep patterns and they didn't do much sleeping at night.
They kind of took turns at sleeping which made for very little sleep for us.
John, who has the ADHD in addition, would only sleep for 3-4 hours at a time. Somehow Nathan would wait until he woke up to start his sleep.
This went on for a couple of years and try as we might, we could not get John to have a full nights sleep.
During this time, one day when the family was watching a Disney movie together, John got up and left the bedroom. He was about 3 1/2 at the time.
My husband went to check to see where he was and came back yelling for me.
The kitchen was filling with smoke.
John had turned the stove on and knocked a box onto the element which had caught fire. He then had grabbed a shirt, I think to put the fire out but that had caught fire too.
The flames were licking up the cupboard and onto the ceiling.
I turned off the stove, grabbed John and rushed him to the bedroom with the other kids and then came back to the kitchen and got a wet towel.
I told Paul to grab the extinguisher from the garage, which he did and proceeded to use.
We finally got it out and were very lucky with the small amount of damage that we had as opposed to what could have happened.
We decided that we needed to place a sturdy gate between the lounge room and the kitchen area which could be closed when we needed to.
Also, at night time because the potential of one of the kids wandering out the door if they woke up and we had fallen asleep was growing.
We live next to a train track and it fascinates the boys.
One of my friends sells 4 Life products and she suggested the Riovida which contains Transfer Factor which I was coming across more and more in my research on Autism.
So, I ordered some and, no joke, within a week, John started sleeping from 10pm to approx 7am.
It is completely herbal, I wasn't prepared for the difference this made to us.
Without John to wake him at intervals, Nathan started sleeping better too.
Their moods improved a little as they weren't so tired.
Boy what a difference.
At last, we were able to get some sleep!
# posted by donna mason @ 4:53 AM 
