Apparently not in this house!
“mum, you awake?”
Well, if I wasn’t I am now!
I grunt not sure there was a word in there or just an acknowledgement of yes I am cause you woke me up,
“ its back”
That’s not good cause I am supposed to know what it is! What is it? Ok, go for the safe reply!
“that’s not good, what do you need me to do?”
I ask that because he hates asking for anything so if I am not direct it will take hours before he gets to the point!
“Come catch it! “I turn over to look at him my 15-year-old standing with the hover like it is a weapon ready to attack any bugs that come to close. (This makes me smile even at 4 am)
This was a method I put in place when he was about 10 as I got fed up with midnight bug hunts!
He does not often hover a bug, but it makes him feel safer and therefore stops the manic searching well into the night!
He has a massive phobia of bugs and although he is now a lot better in the daytime and we have challenged this, the middle of the night in his safe space is still an ongoing project!
So up I get I do not moan or grumble as he would only wake me up if he truly needed me, I have many a night of been woke up, even my oldest will sit down for deep 2 am conversations.
Over the years of working with children, I have found that teenagers especially want to communicate when they feel happiest, under the cover of night!
This night we didn’t find the bug, those are the nights that are worst because his anxiety will go high, and he cannot even settle in his room until it is found!
So, he parked in the living room in very anxiety protection mode as we call it,
Laptop with favourite movies and headphones on blocking out the world, Soon he was out for the count on the couch.
This is not an unusual night for us, as a mum of two teenagers sleep seems to happen in the day more often than the night especially with school holidays in the mix (college break up early! Who knew?)
This is especially true with my son.
Believe me when I tell you I have tried everything to help him sleep.
I specialise in sleep issues BUT must admit that sometimes no matter your tools sleep is always going to be a difficulty for my little man.
According to spectrum news:
Sleep disorders, anxiety, mutations in genes and levels of melatonin are proven to be more typical in autistic people!
This does not even go into the things that our toolbox can tackle, for example, sensory issues and anxiety.
LET alone the BUG!
This amount of calm dealing with issues has taken years of work and most nights or days he does sleep, which from a mum whose child would wake up every single hour when he was little is amazing!
I learnt a lot of tools along the way trying to solve sleeping issues and have a huge toolkit!
Sleep can always be improved but cannot always be solved completely.
If you experience nights like this one and want to start working on making these less common, then I would love to hear from you!
Together we can build your toolkit so these nights are as infrequent as possible, or if like my son it's not possible to always sleep we can create ways that you can at least get rest while they are confident in how to help themselves!
Hope everyone gets a good nights to sleep with no Bugs!
Tracy
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