Aspies For Freedom

Hi all

Would appreciate some advice on this.

Lately, Megan has gotten very very clingy towards my wife. She has alwys woken up in the night and up til just lately we were able to take it in shifts.

Nowadays, if my wife isn't with her, she screams and cries and basically has a tantrum. Even if Naomi merely goes up to the loo she has a fullscale meltdown!

This is obviously distressing for all of us. Megan is really upset obviously, Naomi (who is 5 months pregnant) is exhausted and I am feeling (oh dear, selfish old me) a bit left out. Me and Meggy used to have a great time at night. I'm an insomniac anyway so it didn't really bother me being up very late (up to a point obviously) and I really miss my daughters company

We've thought that Megan may have picked up on Naomi's pregnancy and is worried she will be unloved when the new baby comes but we've made a point from day one of the pregnancy of telling her that we will always love her and she will always be our precious daughter.

Recently its got very bad as Meg sometimes pinches or scratches us out of temper. the whole situation is made worse by the fact that Megan doesn't vocalise yet. She has Speech Therapy and we're (together with her school) introducing a pictoral timetable but progress is slow. I'd love to know what Megan is thinking sometimes!

Any insights anyone can offer will be greatly appreciated. We just want Meggy to be happy again.

Kev, unfortunately ALL children appear to be going through stages of only wanting one or the other parent to exclusively look after them. All my children, and now my grandchildren have had 'Mommy' or 'Daddy' phases, where the other parent is practically not even allowed to touch them if they are there. When the other parent is obviously not home it isn't a problem, however.

And I have found that NOTHING works to stop this. Time will take care of it. You might find that in a few weeks she'll want only you to do things for her!

So, my advice is: Try your best to gently explain to her why Mommy needs her rest, but don't expect it to make any difference, since little kids aren't exactly known for their logic. She'll get over it eventually. Which is easy to say for me I guess (especially now that my kids aren't little any more). But that is my experience.

Ursula

How old is she? Is she sleeping at night?
Kids can often lash out in temper, I would say that its common.

Thanks for your replies both

Megan will be 5 on the 17th of this month

Her sleep is very intermittent. Very occassionaly she will sleep through but mostly she will wake up at any point between 1 and 3 and will stay awake for the rest of the night or may sometimes fall asleep after 2-3 hours of being awake.

She's probably too young to understand much about pregnancy and where babies come from, so I don't think that's her worry.  More likely, she's feeling neglected because, with her mother being so tired from the pregnancy and needing to rest more often, she's not getting as much attention as she's used to getting.

One small semantic point: I'd suggest that, when talking to Megan, you say "the baby" or "the little baby" instead of "the new baby."  Autistic kids can be very literal with language (whether or not they speak). My parents told me that, when my sister was born, I got very upset about having a "new baby" in the house.  Eventually they figured out that I was worried about being the "old baby" and perhaps no longer needed, like old clothes!

Have you thought of trying melatonin for the sleeping problems?
Its the natural substance that the body produces to send you to sleep. So many kids with autism have sleeping problems and they can get very hyper at night.
It has no side effects, my son has taken it for a long time and it helps him so much. He has a sleep disorder and the lack of sleep was affecting him a lot. It can be taken from about 4 years of age, and is available on prescription in the UK.

Bonnie: good point re: 'new' baby.

Amy: For the nights that Megans capacity for wakefulness surpasses our ability to remain awake we give her a medication called Vallergan which is basically an anti-histamine. We absolutely hate giving it to her as it has a definite negative effect on her the following day but sometimes we are all so tired that to stay awake would be hazardous for Megan.

Megans consultant has mentioned Melatonin in the past and we've toyed with the idea but we were under the impression that it was a fairly new development and not a lot was known about the long term affects and for that reason we tended to shy away from it. I also was told by the consulant that Melatonin is good for making people actually drop off to sleep but doesn't help them stay asleep which is the exact reverse of Megans problems.

I'd be interested in hearing a little more about your experiences with it though as you've obviously had a postive result with it.

My son has taken melatonin for about 7 years, and has shown no side effects. As it is a natural product that it is the body anyway that doesnt suprise me.
It has great beneficial effects of letting his mind rest and go off to sleep.
I think it is worth trying for a month, and establishing a good routine at the same time every night. If it fails at least you have tried and it could be a great help when you are up all night with a new baby.

If thats supposed to some stupid troll, you are not welcome here.

There's good parenting for ya... throw your kid that you supposed love and care for at a professional and pretend they don't exist... sorry you lose my respect, troll or not AlCapone. As for your siggy there Al, is that supposed to be some sort of dumb joke? If it was, you proved your stupidity, not all autistics rock (literally) as a stim. You just proved you adhere to myths of autism.

A child needs to be taught by a parent, not some damn professional that makes idiotic unbased claims to know what the hell they are doing. They need the love and caring and attention from their parents. Now go back to trollville.

SuperNanny just tackled autism on Nov. 4th on the show with the help of Dr. Lynn Koegal (her husband and her basically started PRT - Pivotal Response Training, a form of 'natural environment-based ABA'.

Enzo, I didn't see the show you're discussing, but I do have a few general comments about autism and the way it is portrayed in the media as an unknown and terrifying condition:

Every child, whether autistic or not, is an "unknown."  Every child has different thought processes, sensory reactions, personality traits, interests, and abilities.  A large part of a parent's job consists of finding out (chiefly by trial and error) how best to understand and teach the child.  That is not the exclusive domain of experts, but is a function of spending time with the child regularly and communicating with the child, whether in words, or in other nonverbal ways.

As Mish said in her post above: Being a good parent is about love, caring, and attention.

I predict that you and your child will do just fine.   :smile:

I haven't seen the show, but people were discussing it in the chatroom and it sounded as though the child was not being allowed certain food, such as a cookie, until he said the word. I think using food like that is wrong, and could lead to food fears, or eating problems in sensitive children.

While that may be true in some cases, it's often another way for pediatrictions to unfortunately mistakenly bypass those children with speech disorders. It doesn't hurt to have a child evaluated if there is a concern. I was put off by the family dr. when I told the family dr. that Dylan at 12 months wasn't making any different sounds even though he was making the same ones for 6 months and none of them were directed at an object/person or whatever. Instead we had to wait till 28 months to have him evaluated and didn't get started speech therapy till 30 months, his first real words didn't really show up till 34-36 months. I heard "Mama" out of him for the first time at 36 months only after I heard "Mama" out of his 6 month old brother. For having been a mother having dealt with the concern about a child's speech both for the fact that he had verbal apraxia as well as was a late talker, I know how hard it is for a parent to wait for those first words and watching other people hear those from their kids much earlier. It was heartbreakinging to hear other kids say "Mama" or "Dada" and in our house for Dylan, "Mama" and "Dada" were just as easily the wall, the tv, the floor, anything. I remember hearing Dylan say to me directly "Mama" at 3 yrs of age and how much I cried as it was wonderful to hear.

As far as any concerns you have bring them up to the speech therapist when you see her for the evaluation. If you can describe sounds the child makes, movement of mouth/tongue that may not seem right, Dylan never licked his lips, he couldn't blow bubbles and such. That was a sign of oral motor apraxia.