My dd with PDD-NOS will be 3 in a week. She is doing great and responding incredibly to the ABA therapy we started in August. Our biggest issue right now is its taking her a LONG time to fall asleep....sometimes hours. I feel so bad knowing she is awake in there. She is not upset or crying, just in there messing around, talking and singing to herself or talking to the other girls and they all end up getting excited and or exhausted.
She gets up reluctently around 7am, they go down for a nap around 1pm-and sometimes sleeps until around 4pm. They they go to bed at about 8:30pm. Any thoughts or ideas. I just don't feel like I can completely rest or relax until I know they are all asleep. KWIM.

Katie

Katie

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Hi Katie,
My son Dillon was the same way. He would be in the room until he would just pass out where he was. We did finally start giveing him Melitonin. It's what you body produces naturally to get you to sleep.
Our developmental ped was ok with this. It just helps you fall asleep.

We recently stopped giving it to him because he seemed to be getting nightmares or something and the ped said it was posible from that. but we did give it to him for about 2 years and had no problem before that.

Good luck. My little guy is in there awake right now.

Julie

What dose did you give him? We tried 1mg in the liquid a few months ago, but I didn't really notice a difference and it was really hard to get her to take it. Do you have to take it for awhile before it starts really working?

Thanks!! Katie

Katie

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It was a 3mg pill and we used 1/2 pill. I would just chek with your dr first because she is alittle younger than my son was.

We would crush the 1/2 pill and put it in a spoonful of pudding. Yeah I know not the best thing before bedtime but his diet is very limited. Maybe if she eats applesauce or yougert you coul do that.

It should work immediately not over time. I would say within 30 minutes he would be sleeping. It doesn't keep them asleep it just helps falling asleep.

Julie

YOu can also try Hyland's calm's Forte. It helps them relax so they can go to sleep. I think it is a bit milder than melatonin, not sure.

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It could be that dd is growing out of the need for a nap altogether..or at least not such a long one. When my kiddos reached this stage I found that they were up until 10pm on the days that they napped, but fell asleep at 7:30-8pm on days that they didn't. You might want to try skipping the nap or waking her around 2:30 and see how the night routine goes after that. My ds, who has PDD-NOS, did much better with no nap. If he napped for even 15 minutes it was enough to push his bedtime back another hour at least.

T

I think you are right about her maybe not needing a nap....at least not as often. It seems like every other day or every third day she just crashes at nap time, otherwise like today she was up the whole time, but then at bedtime just totally crashed!! I think I will schedule some of her ABA therapy a few days a week during naptime. That way the other girls will be asleep and out of the way and she can get in some more hours of therapy.
Also thanks for the melatonin advice....we tried that again last week and it seemed to work pretty well, maybe we didn't give her enough before.

Katie

Katie

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