Sleeping Problems

[grace19]

What type of sleeping problems does your child have,if any? Has anyone experienced anyone who appears to be awake but is actually sleeping? that is so scary. Their eyes are open and they can talk with you but then they have no memory of the conversation later. The person I encountered witth this problem was hostile during the episode. I'm not sure what it's called but it's very strange because you think they are fully awake and they are not.

[BetsyAnn]

I am actually guilty of this. It usually occurs when I am sleep deprived and under stress. The most frightening episode happened shortly after the birth of my second child. My husband reports that I had taken the baby out of his crib and he asked me where I was going. He said I became very aggitated and began saying, "This isn't my baby, where is my baby! What have you done with my baby!" It really freaked him out.

Frequently when I am just trying to roll over or get up to use the bathroom my husband reaches over with his arm and pins me to the bed because his worried about what I am going to do.

When I was in college I came downstairs and looked at my two roommates and their guests and very angrily demanded that they get all of their garbage off of my bedroom floor immediately and then went back upstairs to bed. The two girls were slobs, but none of their belongings had ever been in my room. Because I had failed to warn them about my nighttime excursions, and I appeared awake, they spent the rest of the night discussing what type of personality disorder I must have.

I also have these episodes when I am sleeping somewhere unfamiliar. I think it is because I have a harder time getting into a deep sleep.

This type of episode is related to night terrors. I think that most people that have this problem also have a tendency to have night terrors. It almost always happens within the first hour or two after going to bed. It is caused by a malfunction in the sleep-arousal area of the brain.


My autistic son had alot of sleep problems. He couldn't go to sleep. When he would fall asleep he wouln't stay asleep. I was so sleep deprived that I thought I was going actually going to die. Our doctor finally prescribed some Tenex. It helped alot. ( I personally believe that it saved my life.) My son could go to sleep and pretty much stay asleep but it was a restless agitated sleep. He would thrash around all night. He was also groggy and spaced-out the next day.

He was on the Tenex for a couple of months when we decided to put him on the GF/CF diet. I was unaware that the diet would have an impact on his sleep but after being completelycasein free for three days he started sleeping soundly and peacefully for the first time in his life. The change was so dramatic that we knew it was the lack of casein in his diet. We have not had to give Tenex since starting the diet. When he was first on the diet if he had the smallest dietary infraction such as one flavored potato chip he would not sleep well for three days. Three days seemed the magic number. We did not know it at the time but it takes casein three days to leave the body. (Gluten doesn't seem to affect his sleep any.)

Of course our pediatrician thinks that it is just coincidental, and he merely outgrew his sleeping problems. The results were too dramatic for it to be coincidental. Being able to sleep makes all of the hassle of the diet worth it for us.

[glsmom]

My daughter is 3 1/2 she is also a Grace and has had what I call night terrors. She has been gfdf for 8 months so I see This alot less often. She would wake up and cry and scream uncontrolably for about 20 minutes it would look as though she was awake but she would not respond to anything. She did not want to be held or touched but did not want me to leave the room either. She would be very violent kicking pulling her hair and bitting herself. Then it would be over in the blink of an eye she would just roll over and go back to sleep. She now sleeps through the night and does not have these episodes.

[kleaf]

My son is 4 years old and not yet diagnosed.

His sleeping problems have been driving me insane for about 2 years now. As a baby I had trouble getting him to settle and he'd wake up frequently but I just put this down to being a baby. I somehow got it under control and improved it but just as he turned 2 it all went haywire again.

He goes through stages where he just fights his sleepiness and stays up all night. He has been known to stay up until 10am in the morning. He just wanders around the house, turning on the telly, playing with toys etc etc. Then he went into new stage where he would go to sleep, just not until late. He was staying awake until between say 12am and 4am.

His developmental paediatrician prescribed some pure melatonin to help put him to sleep which worked wonders. Within 15-30 minutes of taking it he would be asleep, my only problem now is that he is still waking up.

Some nights he just wakes up crying and I give him a cuddle and he is back to sleep until morning, other nights he wakes up absolutely hysterical and takes hours to calm down and go back to sleep. Due to his communicative problems he can't tell me whether he has had a nightmare or not or what the problem is so I'm very much in the dark. Often, when it takes him ages to settle down, I think he is too awake to go back to sleep and he is happy to ge tup and stay awake until the morning, even if it is hours away. He'll get up and put the tv on, or go into his toy room.

It is driving me completely mad, I haven't slept properly in so long. I'm finding it very hard to function, I think it's really impacting on my moods and it is virtually impossible for me to wake up in the morning. We have just recently increased his dosage of melatonin to 3mg and if this doesn't improve thigns in the next week we have another appointment with his Sleep Specialist. She may look into changing his diet.. which I don't see how it will be possible considering he eats an incredibly limited range of foods.

When will it ever end.

[BetsyAnn]

we have another appointment with his Sleep Specialist. She may look into changing his diet.. which I don't see how it will be possible considering he eats an incredibly limited range of foods.

Going casein free solved our sleep problems. However, I doubt this would be recommended by the sleep specialists. Most people in the medical field find "the diet" to be unsubstaniated and improvements merely coincidental. It does seem like an impossible diet when you are looking at the very limited diet that most autistic children have. We found, however, that once we eliminated casein and glutten our child started eating other food much more freely. Being able to get a good nights rest made any difficulties of the diet seem insignificant. It should take less than a week to know if going without casein will help. I think it is worth a try. You can always abandon it if it doesn't help.

Did anyone else seem improvements in sleep after starting "the diet"?