by Ditte Young
Updated on April 29, 2025
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
I don’t think that it’s common knowledge for other families how big a problem the “fall asleep problem” is for many autistic children and their parents.
I desperately tried to find a sleep pattern or reason for my son’s severe sleep problems. Still, I never did until I figured out I had to find the balance between him being overstimulated and understimulated.
It was a very difficult task since he was in the hands of a kindergarten where I had no control over how much they stimulated him or the other children during the day, even though I begged them to respect that he needed breaks during the day. I thought they would know this by now, as they were the specialists—at least I thought that initially.
They prescribed him all sorts of sleeping pills but not the one he would become addicted to. I found out many years later that many of these products can cause brain damage. Once again, I felt lost and alone.
In this article, you will learn more about how to help your autistic child get better sleep.
My son slept for a maximum of 4 hours at night. I tried to have very structured bedtime routines. I always sang the same songs, and I put him to bed at the exact same time every night. He could fall asleep easily, but after 2 hours, he would wake up, and he could stay awake for hours, before I finally succeeded in making my child sleep again.
After half an hour, he would wake up again. I started making a wake schedule and a sleep schedule to determine if there was a pattern.
At one point, I gave up. I knew he could survive only 4 hours of sleep at night, but I couldn’t.
As a single mom and running my own business, I was constantly walking around in a bubble, and I could have fallen asleep in 30 seconds if I allowed myself to do that.
I felt that I abandoned my child when I knew he was awake during the night, but I could no longer survive on 4 hours of sleep.
I couldn’t find any sleep research or sleep education that could explain my son’s huge sleep issues, so I ended up giving up and sensing what he felt instead.
I tried to forget about the many pieces of advice people gave me, which I didn’t find useful because of how little they helped Philip with his restful sleep.
So many people gave me advice on his bedtime routines, but I had already implemented them, and neither did they help. I desperately tried to get help from my local community and commune, asking for professional help with autistic children’s sleep patterns, but they didn’t have any explanations, courses to join, or professional psychologists who could help us.
When I finally stopped looking for the pattern, I realized that my son’s sleep habits were a consequence of the stimulation he received during the day, the number of pauses given in kindergarten, and my stress.
The calmer I was, the more relaxed his nervous system became. I couldn’t lie and tell myself I was calm if I truly wasn’t. I had been running so fast trying to get food on the table for him and me, so I saw myself stressed and burnt out.
I don’t think I could have handled it differently when I look back at our situation today. It was pure survival, and I believe that most parents of autistic children know what I am saying here. There is no energy for seeking new information or help that doesn’t work out immediately.
I wish that there were a person who could tell you where to find help and what to expect when you become a parent to an autistic child. I know all children are individuals, yet some problems are the same. I believe that the issue of falling asleep or staying in a deep sleep is one of them.
This is the reason why I am telling my stories as a mother to a son on the autism spectrum.
I know now that I am my son’s specialist, as you are also to your child. I want to encourage all parents of children with autism to trust what you feel about your children and try your best to get the information to the adults who are your child’s caretaker when you cannot be there for several reasons, such as you going to your job, etc.
I recommend you remember the sleep patterns when your child was in your stomach. Maybe you remember it? Perhaps you don’t. But if you remember the pattern back then, you can figure out when your child is awake and needs more rest, even during the day. If you can recall the pattern, you can pass it on to the helpers, the kindergarten, or other adults caring for your child. I wish I had thought more thoroughly about that when we were having problems with the difficulty of falling asleep and staying asleep.
I also recommend that you have a calm and structured bedtime routine. Make sure that your child doesn’t get overstimulated two hours before bedtime. Some things that can overstimulate an autistic child are changing the temperature in the room, which means letting your child in and out of your house or apartment, or bathing your child.
It takes too long for your autistic child to regulate that overstimulation in the physical body afterwards, which can explain problems with falling asleep or staying in the deep sleep.
This also means that the more stimulation your child gets before bedtime, the more stimulation needs to be digested in the nervous system, which can take a while.
– Digestion of food
– Tablet or TV
– Music
– The difference between the body temperature
– Physical touching
– Noise in general
I recommend tugging your child into his or her own bed if he or she is ready for that. This will avoid your child reacting to your noises or energies and result in a more relaxed bedtime routine.
The talented and certified kinesiologists can figure out the imbalances in your child’s organs or intestinal systems as well. I learned that the organs represent the clock. Since my son had imbalances in his liver, he always woke up at 1 am to 3 pm. It required many treatments and a change in his diet to balance his liver.
In my online course “How to make my autistic child eat a variety of food”, you will learn more about autistic children and their eating habits.
I also tried different sorts of weighted blankets.
Some of them had chains in them, some of them had chestnuts, and some of them had balls.
Since many children with autism have a heightened nervous system, they have difficulties in self-stimming to calm themselves down. Stimming can be a physical reaction or a special way to touch the body to calm it down. If the child doesn’t get the right help, many children with autism try to calm themselves down by moving back and forth in small movements, or scratching themselves at the same spot, or having tics.
Since my son never had problems falling asleep, I couldn’t tell the difference between the weighted blankets that helped him or not during that bedtime routine. However, since he had a heightened sense of hearing, the weighted blankets woke him up.
However, I saw a magnificent difference when he was awake and when he got overstimulated. Then, he could sit on a weighted blanket, and I saw his nervous system and physical body calm down, which, of course, improved his psychological behavior as well.
Many companies that produce weighted blankets are willing to loan them to families so that children with autism can try them for two weeks for free. They know that the blankets are costly, and whether they work or not varies from child to child.
My son is 14 years old now, and since he was 8 years old, he has had a more stable sleeping pattern.
I think it was a mix of his brain being ready enough to process the stimulation he got during the day, my nervous system as well, and the knowledge of whether or not what stimulated him helped us. I am sending you love and light, and I hope that you will find this useful.
You are welcome to check out my “Telepathy Masterclass for Parents“.
In this masterclass, you will meet like-minded parents who have various difficulties. I know that worries about bedtime routines are one of them.
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