8 Ways to Improve Sleep For You & Your Child

Improving sleep for individuals with autism and their families requires a flexible, trial-and-error approach rather than relying on a single solution. Consistent physical activity and mental engagement during the day can significantly increase the chances of better sleep, especially when combined. Nutrition and timing also play an important role, with reduced evening sugar, caffeine, and late meals helping support a smoother bedtime routine. Creating a comfortable sleep environment—cool temperature, cozy bedding, and calming surroundings—can further encourage rest, while tools like sound machines, binaural beats, or visual projectors may help in some cases but can also become stimulating. Supplements such as melatonin or methylfolate, and mild medications when necessary, may provide support but should be used cautiously and under medical guidance. Allowing for independent wind-down time and incorporating repetitive, calming routines like prayer or tactile activities can also promote relaxation. Ultimately, better sleep comes from combining strategies, staying patient, and adapting based on what works best for each individual over time.

If you're interested in joining our private Facebook community for parents and caregivers seeking residential options, guidance and peer support for profoundly autistic adults or adults with complex needs - click here!

Transcript

Mike Carr (00:04):

Welcome back to this week's episode of Autism Labs. We're going to talk about something that I think is probably relevant to everybody. And that's how to improve sleep, both your own sleep and your child's sleep too. So when was the last time you didn't go to bed when you really wanted to because your special needs son or daughter kept you up? Well, for me, it was last night. I was up for more than an hour later than normal, trying to help my son settle down. Now I had the moon and the stars up on his ceiling with his galaxy projector and he thought that was pretty cool, but it wasn't going to cause him to go to sleep. And I had his wave music playing, his rain sounds and wave sounds playing in the background, and that didn't do it either. So I switched to binaural beats on Alexa. 

(00:47):

And binaural beats is sort of interesting. That's spelled B-I-N-A-U-R-A-L. It's on YouTube and it's on Alexa and it's got all kinds of different videos and sounds at different frequencies. So you can try different ones to see if there's a particular frequency that really works well for your kiddo. And it's soothing and it's all about helping them go to sleep. Sometimes it works. Last night, nothing worked. So eventually I did what a lot of you guys probably do. I just ended up turning everything off and sitting in the dark quietly in his room, waiting for him to stop wiggling around and stay in bed. And we've been on this journey, my wife and I for a while. Our son's 36, and so it's been 30 years probably we've been fiddling with this. We haven't found a magic formula yet, but we have found some things that work, at least sometimes more often than others.

(01:35):

So I'm going to take you through eight things that have helped us and maybe some of those will help you get your kiddo to sleep and hopefully then you can get some sleep as well. So I've talked about this first one before, and that's physical exercise. And this is probably the most reliable one. If Michael's out and he has a very active day, lots of walking or jogging or basketball, just steady movement, right? When he's up on his feet, moving around, he seems to be much more likely to go to bed at the right time, which is around 10:00 PM for us and stay in bed. So sometimes the best sleep aid is not in a bottle. It's just being worn out. Number two is mental exercise instead of physical exercise. And this one sort of surprised me. But after a really intense speech therapy session, which is maybe 45 minutes, Michael is visibly worn out.

(02:19):

He'll go sit on the couch for five minutes and just be quiet because the brain uses a lot of energy to process. And when he really focuses and really concentrates and he does it for an extended period of time, he does it several times during the day. That's not a bad way to wear him out, especially if the weather doesn't cooperate. So puzzles, matching games, therapy activities, learning tasks, all that mental engagement really seems to work. When his brain works hard, he's tired at the end of the day. Now mixing the two is I think probably the best. Number three is nutrition, food, and when. Now this one's a little bit less consistent for us. Right now, Michael's last food item is about eight o'clock at night, which is a piece of sugar-free cake, and that's probably too late because he tried to go to bed by 10:00.

(03:01):

And then we limit his amount of water after that. I think most experts that you've probably read about and I've read about two say three hours, right? Three hours between your last meal and your bedtime is probably ideal. And we haven't tried the 7:00 PM gap yet, but I think it's probably a pretty good idea. Certainly we know that if he has sugar after 8:00, he's going to be jacked up and it's going to be really hard to get him to bed. And of course he doesn't get much caffeine at all and certainly no caffeine afternoon if we want to have a shot at getting him to get to bed the right time. Number four is room temperature and comfort. And this one's probably pretty obvious to you, but we've been typically setting his thermostat to about 70 at night. I may try 68 tonight, especially after his annex last night, but he does enjoy, just like we all do, getting in his blanket, underneath his blanket and his sheet and he's on his pillow and he's all cozy.

(03:45):

He's got that big smile on his face and he seems happy. And so you can just sort of tell that, oh, he might have a good night's sleep. And he did that last night. He seemed very happy. I turned the lights off and he had his star thing going up above his head and he popped out about five minutes later. So it doesn't always work, but I do think comfort matters. So let's talk about music and let's talk about sound and let's talk about visuals. Sometimes they help and sometimes they actually become that evening's entertainment, which is of course not what you want. We have a couple different things we try. This is something you can buy on Amazon. It's called the Plantarium Projector Pro. It's about 30 bucks. What's cool about it is that these little carbs that have different galaxies and moonshots and whatnot, and you project this thing up on the ceiling when you turn all the lights out and it slowly rotates.

(04:32):

And I think that slight motion really fascinates him because you can be looking at the moon and all of a sudden the moon's at a slightly different spot. And so sometimes that sort of calms him down, it distracts him and he'll go to sleep. As I mentioned other times, we have to turn the thing off because it just isn't going to work. Another thing that you can also get, I think on Amazon, I think we got this at Walmart for like 20 bucks or $22 is this Lulia, L-U-L-I-A, Leah sleep therapy sound machine. And you can set this for 30 or 60 minutes. You can set the projector for like an hour or more. This is 30 or 60 minutes and has all kinds of sounds. So water lapping up on a beach, so waves or rain or all kinds of other things that seem to be soothing.

(05:13):

And we did try recently the binaural beats. That's what I was trying last night. And again, the different frequencies can be helpful. Nothing worked last night, but sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Supplements and medication. Now we're not huge fans of relying on neither one of those, but there are some things that are pretty benign in terms of side effects. It's not going to cause any harm. Melatonin is one of those things that a lot of physicians will recommend. It worked better for us when Michael was little. I also think your body sort of gets used to some of this stuff. So if you start giving him melatonin and it works, but you do it consistently, then over time, I think he builds up a resistance or your child might and it just isn't going to work anymore. And I think that maybe happened to us with melatonin.

(05:53):

Another thing that we use is a supplement called methylfolate. And we use this particular brand. I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference what brand you're using. This one's 15 milligram dosage. We give him one pill about 7:30 at night and it will often calm him down. This is one of the active ingredients in what RFK Jr. Touted a couple months ago as a cure for autism. And I don't think it's a cure, but this particular supplement does help with some behavior and anxiety and whatnot. And the last resort is a mild sleep medication. We are not interested in sleeping pills per se. This is Doxepin. It's 10 milligrams. So it's these 10 milligram tablets. This is the generic for the Sinequan caps, S-I-N-E-Q-U-A-N. So Doxepin is much cheaper for these itty bitty, small, yellow things, and we give them just one. The actual dosage is supposed to be two.

(06:51):

So we may try to, if we really have a tough night, but we've typically given him one. Doesn't always work, but when it works, it works well. And it will tend though to slow him down the next morning. So that's the problem. He'll look groggy in the morning when he gets up and that's not ideal. So I would say for any supplement or for any kind of prescription med, of course, go to the doctor, talk about other meds, supplements your kiddos on, and then try to figure out, is this really, really worth it? Number seven, this seems counterintuitive. Just let him stay up and put himself to bed. And you say, "Well, okay, is that really going to work?" Sometimes it actually does. We'll dim the lights, we'll let him have his puzzles out, have the computer game on. He might have the binaural video on the screen, on the TV set, and he can just mess around for himself for an hour or two.

(07:31):

We'll have him on camera and then he'll sometimes crawl into bed, which is great on his own. However, sometimes as sleepy as he is, he will not go into bed. He'll just sit there on that silly couch and you can see him nodding off, but he will not take himself to bed. And so Kay and I both falling asleep, one of us will wake up at one in the morning and there he is sitting on the couch and we have to go down and escort him into the bedroom. So I do think though there's something to be said for if nothing else works and they're going to be safe and you can watch him sort of on stealth mode with a camera, let him sort of mess around at night has worked well for us. And last but by no means least is prayer. Now, some of you may not be especially religious, but after enough sleep deprived nights, we have found that a lot of parents suddenly find religion.

(08:15):

And I personally believe that prayer helps. And I often start praying early when it's obvious we're going to be having a rough night. Now, Glenn, one of our BCBAs, and he was on the last episode, so if Glenn Carter's the guy, he had a great suggestion this week and we've ordered this morning a rosary, a big bead rosary. And what he thought about it was he can teach Michael how to pray the rosary. It doesn't have to be the rosary. If you're Jewish or if you're different faith, whatever is appropriate, but this idea that it's repetitive, it's calming. You can do it with him. There's something tactile that that rosary bead or the beat of whatever the prayer beat is, he can make progress. And if he does enough of that, it sort of calms him down and gets into the room. So we're going to try that.

(08:53):

I can't say this is going to work, but I thought it was an interesting idea. So those are the eight things that have helped us at different times. Now, again, none of them work every single night and sometimes you have to be creative on how you mix them all together. But I do think for any parent out there, there's probably a couple of these that might work for you. And if you found something that you think really works for your child, please let us know. I mean, either make a comment or send me an email note and I'll be sure and post it. You can reach me at just mike@autismlabs.com. So Autism Labs is all one word, just mike@autismlabs.com. And I'd love to learn anything else that works for you guys and your kiddos that is different than what I've said or just totally missed.

(09:36):

So here is to more rest, fewer midnight standoffs and our better week ahead for you and your family. Have a great one. See you.