Hello,
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
*My son still wets his bed. I feel bad because I know he gets embaressed by it. I have stopped giving him water right before bed and he always goes pee before he sleeps. However, he still sometimes wets his bed. Do any of your kids still wet their beds? Any tips?
*My son forgets to do everything. So basically, if I didn't remind him to get dressed, brush his teeth etc. it wouldn't happen. I have put up step by step instructions for him on how to brush his teeth. This seems to help when it comes to HOW to brush his teeth. But do you have any advice on how he can become self-sufficient when it comes to remembering how to do things without relying on somebody telling him?
*He has sensory overload with certain smells. One example is these chips I once bought. He started crying and asked me to leave the room. When we were in the grocery store and he saw the chips on display, he ran away. His therapist said we should "ease" him into being around things I like, but he doesn't... guess to help him not become so overwhelmed. How do I even start doing this? She didn't really elaborate.
Thanks!
Hi there Kattoo
My 8 year old son is still in special nappies as he is wet each and every night. I have tried all the methods from withholding water/juice to waking and carrying him to the loo nothing really works. The Paediatrician did tell me that it could be a body thing and that next time we meet he can check for a problem with concentration of urine... apparently its not uncommon in children with ASD that they are unable to concentrate urine and therefore there is masses of wee at night. My son tends to wee constantly in the day time too so Im kind of assuming that this is the issue... the doctors can give a short term dose of medication to help the body to learn to concentrate urine and this is thought to stop night time enuresis.... another thing they might suggest if it is not biological is to introduce bahvioural methods such as alarms... now as my son cant abide ALARMS in any way, I am hoping this is NOT the route they take... go and see the paediatrician hun and also the school nurse should be able to help you out with this area too.
Regarding the smells I dont know... perhaps you can make a game of smells at dinner time: for example get some strawberries and really casually say mmm can you smell the strawberries... and then let him eat them... slowly slowly change the different smells eg cheese can be fairly pungent until you bring him round to the smells he doesnt like.... it could actually be that he simply hates the smell of chips (crisps?) and doesnt like them... I cant stand pineapple and just the smell of it makes me feel queasy ... but you can work together to slowly desensitize him to the smells if YOU feel it is worth it. It may also be a phase for him and he may become more accustomed to smells around him as time moves forward.
I really hope this has helped in some way
its also so lovely for me to be meeting other mums on here who experience similar things ... i tuly thought I was going mad but reading more and more on here Im realising that Im not and Im not a pandering over the top neurotic mum either PHEW!!!
Rosie
xxxxxxx
I really hope this has helped in some way
its also so lovely for me to be meeting other mums on here who experience similar things ... i tuly thought I was going mad but reading more and more on here Im realising that Im not and Im not a pandering over the top neurotic mum either PHEW!!!
Rosie
xxxxxxx
thank you so much, rosie!!! it is great to know we are not alone
I was enuretic till about the age of nine as well. I think my mother despaired. I saw countless doctors and ended up having alarms as well. It was kind of a fine wire mesh panel that was placed under the sheets and then when I wet the bed, the alarm sounded.
That didn't really work for me, though, didn't make me stop wetting the bed.
What eventually seemed to work was bribery. Although I've no idea whether at the age of nine I was just due to grow out of it anyway. But I was told that if I didn't wet the bed for a week, my mother would buy me a book. I was a voracious reader at the time, I loved all the Enid Blyton Famous Five and Secret Seven books, and there were lots of them in the series, so I aimed to get a new one every week. Like I said, I don't know whether there was some psychological subconscious effect, or whether at that age I just grew out of it.
I remember watching one of the television programmes about child behaviour, Super Nanny or something like that... and I remember seeing that for some small children they had a chart for getting ready. They had all the tasks in a list (with pictures), like brushing teeth, clothes, shoes, breakfast. And then a space next to the pictures. I think they had some velcro in the space. And then they had something like smiley faces or suns and when they completed the task they moved the smiley face from the side into the column next to the task they had just completed. And then they could see from the list of pictures what was the next thing they needed to do. That kind of thing seems like a good idea.
I don't have any suggestions or advice about how to deal with the sensory overload issues though, I'm afraid.
I was going to suggest prizes. My autistic son is not potty trained yet, he's 4. My typical son got prizes when he started with the potty , he never had accidents at night. Also, what I do for my autistic son is I have strips of PECs that show each step. This way he has a visual - I velcro them to the wall whenever he does the task so he can see the steps he needs to do. Perhaps that will help.
My son is 6 and still has accidents at night. Not all the time, but seems to go in phases, he'll be dry for weeks, then wet 3 or 4 nights in a row. I do what you do, limit drinks before bed and pee before bed. If I know he's had a lot of fluids during the day, I sometimes lift him out of bed when I go to bed and take him to the toilet then. But as it's infrequent I don't do this as a matter of routine. When he's awake and needs the toilet, it always has to be now! He doesn't seem to be able to anticipate that he might need to go, and I think I read somewhere that this urgency can be an AS thing....
Don't have any solutions I'm afraid. Maybe taking him to the toilet in the middle of the night might help. If he gets into the habit of it, then it might not disrupt his sleep too much. I have always tended to get up and go to the toilet in the night, so maybe that's habit he'll have to get into....
Sorry, I don't have any ideas on the other issues. At the moment I just remind my son and sometimes he has to remind me to do some things! I need lists myself!
One thing I'd suggest is a plastic mattress protector so it's only the sheets that need changing. One of my brothers wet the bed until he was 12. He just seemed to grow out of it. Nothing much seemed to work. Sometimes it is an anxiety thing too.
Sorry I can't help much with the self-help skills as I still have trouble getting started with things like making meals and I get easily sidetracked from doing tasks. The chart with the smiley faces does look like a good idea and could probably help.
Some of my children were bed-wetters, but then so was I!
Just like Pakrat I used waterproof sheets under the bedding so there was no big drama; and I always lifted them at my bed-time which did reduce the accidents, and used the special disposable pants, although in those days they weren't particularly good.
With five kids there was too much bedding to do it all on the same day anyway, so
some beds were always being changed and no-one could point a finger at anyone else.
I can only say that they
do eventually get control, and the less fuss that is made about it the better. It is a very common problem. The doctor said it is because the part of the brain that receives signals from the bladder matures later, as do the connections with other bodily functions. I know that I could
read before I was two; but couldn't
burp deliberately until my late teens.
I think the velcro chart sounds like a good idea. I could really use one for my family! It is hopeless expecting teenagers to remember to do any chores around the house!
Kids can be ego-centric - my honest john seems to think to him self (about whether or not he should do something) what is in it for me. I concur on the prizes. It is possible that your son might not be focussing enough on Not doing something - a prize or a prize chart to be more specific could work. Charts work, it is something that can be seen - a sticker for every day - make it one day, prize... then the new goal 2 days. etc., when a week, and when you - hopefulkly - get to a month in advance of that ask what would he want... maybe he just needs to focus on it -0 it just might not be one of his prioriites now.. and if it isn't that may be okay too, maybe he is working on something else now that is a priority....
Alsso, if your child is 8 and your Dr, only now suggested a test, seems worrying (to see if bladder is small or something else medical).
Also, a thought on sensory and the supermarket.... Temple grandin, an autistic author wrote, and I believed her, that you should not make a child do soemthing they are not ready for. It is the same as making a kid run before their leg healed, you know? A suggestion, similar to a previos poster - to make a game out of new smells, sometimes a kid doesn't know what the smell is - it is the unknown that is troublesome - but you have to SHOw him the food doesn't hurt YOu, I wouldn't suggest you try to get him to eat it, but to learn that the smell is not going to hurt HIM, cuz you eat it and it doesn't hurt you... just an idea
OOh, I forgot, my john was exactly the same on the brushing the teeth etc., (he's 11 now) He is an artist and a typical aspie as far as liking charts and lists.... With his help I made a CHECKLIST - (well 2 one for enight too) and he drew a picture of the steps in his morning routine. #1 bathroom (he drew a toilet, I think) #2 brush teeth and so on... it was a long time ago, I can't beleive I don't remember the details... at night it worked really well, cuz if he did his checklist without reminders (he checked each item off early on, then just did them) at night, he'd get a "priveledge" family chat, extra book read, read the funny pages together whatever... List mixed with a pay-off for him
By the way, in kindergarten, his teacher told us he got lost every morning in her classroom and could not seem to figure out the routine when he arrived. #1 put coat on hook, # 2 get folder out of back-pack # 3 put folder in teachers basket, #4 sit down... one month in, we finally hear she is frustrated with him... (by the way we only kept him in that school for 3 months) anyway, as soon as we heard about this, he made himself a checklist and within a week he had it figured out... he drew pictures and a map - drawn to scale, 3 dimensional, with unbeleivable detail...
l
lol john I know this isnt what you were talking about but your name "honest john" made me smile, Im a minder and this week I had a little one with me and said to the mum Im not sure what to do today actually but that a certain place was a little far out to consider... my son piped up all looked me straight in the eye and said "You told me that we couldnt go to THAT place with "little girl" because YOU dont have ENOUGH money!" I was put in me place well and truly and blushed as I said to the mum "sorry my son says it how it is!"
You say some really interesting things here. Ive had similar issues with my son's school recently and you are right a timetable or lists could well be really helpful
thanks for your post