Nothing is Happening Tomorrow

Have you ever had someone start to say something, in the sense of revealing information, and you would do anything to stop them? We have many times.

When our two children with autism lived with us, both had sleep issues but in different ways. Abby was just messed up when it came to sleep. It was not unusual for her to get up between 1 and 3 am.

Logan generally slept well, getting up around 7 am. Unless someone said something.

If in the evening, we or someone else, mentioned that something would happen the next day, there would be a problem.

"Logan, Grandma is coming for a visit tomorrow."

"Logan, tomorrow is a day off school."

"Logan, Abby's birthday is tomorrow."

If anything was going to happen the next day, Logan would get up extremely early. Sometimes midnight and sometimes he wouldn't sleep at all.

We came up with the policy that NOTHING was going to happen tomorrow, no matter what was really going to happen. It was easier to train ourselves than others. It is natural to share the excitement of what was coming. Sometimes the event was so minor, that it did not seem to be a big deal. But we had to cut off people and re-educate people about what was allowed to be said.

Anticipation was something too disruptive to Logan's sleep.

And that is a glimpse of autism.

How Veggie Tales Saved My Life

Well actually Veggie Tales didn't really save my life. But is sure helped make my life as an autism dad easier.

Our daughter, Abby, had some pretty bad sleep disruptions. For some reason, she just would wake up between 1 and 3 am. Every night. It was pretty rough.

I finally found a way for me to get her back to sleep. But I had to do the same thing every time. When she would wake up, I would bring her upstairs and I would give her a rice cake and a cup of milk. Then I would put on the Veggie Tales video, King George and the Ducky (because I knew it was only a half hour). The key was to tell Abby before the video started and about half way through that as soon as it was done, she would be going back to bed. I had to make this announcement before the video was finished. It didn't work every time, but it did probably 80% of the time. And when you are talking a nightly occurrence, that makes a big difference.

I share this just to give you a glimpse of what it is like to be an autism parent.