10 Ideas
to Make
Bedtime
Easier
By Cynthia Kim
The majority of autistic children have
some sort of sleep difficulties, and as a
kid, I was no exception. I was usually
the last one in the house to fall asleep.
My parents would put me in bed at eight
o’clock, but that was just the start of a long
bedtime ritual. I’d spend hours reading by
the glow of my night light, making multiple trips to the bathroom for a drink of
water or one last pee.
eight hours of sleep and wake up feeling
like I’ve won the lottery.
Signs of Insomnia
The prevalence of insomnia in autistic
children is surprisingly high. Forty to
eighty percent of kids on the spectrum
experience some sort of sleep problem.
While we often think of insomnia as
something that occurs in adults who are
My difficulty falling asleep when I was
stressed, depressed or ill, the sleep probyounger has grown into full-blown inlems that make up insomnia can also
somnia as an adult. Some nights I wake
be a primary condition—one that isn’t
up a half dozen times; others I wake up at associated with any other health condi3:00 AM, feeling like it is the middle of the tion. This seems to be the case in many
afternoon. I can hit the ground running
autistic individuals. Several studies have
at 5:00 AM with a cheeriness that seems
linked autism with decreased melatonin
to annoy most people. Maybe once every
production, meaning that we experience
few weeks I get a blissfully uninterrupted sleep problems simply because our bodies
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Zoom Autism Through Many Lenses