A Day in the Atypical boys life

Well I thought I would share a typical day in my 5 year old sons life:

Well my son stays up late like most boys on the spectrum he does not sleep well this has been hard on the hubby and I but mostly me as my husband could sleep through a tornado!

So this said he is generally up by 10-11am, now I know I should wake him earlier we have tried that for a couple weeks straight but all that happens is I get even less sleep as he still stays up late.

He generally does not like to eat first thing but he does like to turn on the tv and watch rescue bots on netflix. I usually just bring him a bowl of dry cereal and he will eat on it then if he is in the mood he will come get milk. After one episode I have him go change his pull up and get dressed. He then finishes eating rarely will he just sit and eat he is constantly getting up. Then he watches another episode well he really does not watch it all he by now is awake enough to play with his cars with the movie running in the background.

If I do not keep my eye on him and have to do something I will walk in to find a box of cereal or crackers scattered on the floor and him mashing it with his cars his favorite activity since he was 18 months. I have tried everything short of buying locking cupboards to keep him out of the cereal it just was not worth it when I found him climbing over the counter and stretching to reach the top of the fridge just to get the cereal down. I have decided now that I am more familiar with autistic behaviors this is probably one of his stims he finds comfort in it. So now I deliberately leave a smaller portion of cereal around so maybe he wont use a whole box.

I have learned if nothing else from being the mom to children on the spectrum you have to pick your battles when possible. If I spend all the time trying to get them to conform to the same expectations for neuro typical children I would have a whole day and night of meltdowns and I am sorry but my sanity is important too. So I do expect certain things from my children mainly the really yucky things are unacceptable and sure to set me off lol like playing with your poop YUCK! Luckily I have not had much problem in this department till I got the youngest girl she does not like poopy diapers so she will play in them if you dont change them right away UGH!

Well back to the boy he as been pretty good in this department and thank goodness finally got trained to at least poop in the toilet. It has been two months since I had to change his poopy pants YEAH!!! He is still working on the urinating in toilet I really feel he just can not tell when he as to pee.

So after he plays with cars he generally wants to play in the sand box with cars even more so out he goes, usually with baby sister in tow, it kinda sucks in winter as I have no place to let him go play while I do some cleaning. I go check on him tons as it does not take him long to get into something I usually will go fold some laundry outside or sit on the deck and read. Usually after an hour or so he wants a drink or something and gets distracted with something inside. I usually have him do ABC Mouse while I make him some lunch and less he wants to help me cook it.

Then he usually turns on another movie like bob the builder and plays with cars again I try to get him to do a puzzle or something new sometimes he will sometimes he wont depends on his mood. We usually end up back outside I try to get him to notice something new in nature daily trying to get him interested in his surroundings not just those cars.

I usually go get the girls about this time and then my life gets to crazy to do much with him and he will usually watch a movie while I try to get the girls to do their chores and homework while I start dinner.

The kids usually play a game together including the boy or watch a movie then they get ready for bed have a story and go to bed except for the boy. He generally is up playing the only way we can get him to go to sleep is to hold him while we watch a movie and it has to be something boring. You can read to him and put him to bed and guarantee he is up playing with cars or doing whatever. I have put him to bed thought he was out go to bed myself only to be awakened by him getting into the fridge. Generally he is up till around 2am when you can finally bore him to death with music to get him to sleep.

ADHD

ADHD can be very trying to parents and children. A lot of children with ADHD can be helped by use of caffeine, I know this sounds crazy but I am here to tell you it can make a huge difference. Of course it does not work the same for all children as everyone is different. However it has improved my daughter tremendously and I do not have to deal with all the nasty side affects of most ADHD medicines. I started doing this right before Christmas break as my daughter was driving her teacher crazy. She just takes 2 oz of mountain dew in the morning right before she goes to school this helps her not get so hyper later in the day. From what I have observed it tends to even her out for most of the day. However some days at around 3pm she gets a little cranky so we give her just a bit more so her mood stays even all day. The time might vary for each child so just be aware of how they are doing.
I like the caffeine because I can control how much she gets and when as she does not need the caffeine when she is home as it does not bother me that she is hyper. I do not want her drinking mountain dew all the time and could choose another drink with caffeine but I like to also use vojo mints. She only has to take 2-3 of these and they act just like the mountain dew they come in citrus, berry sour, and peppermint. She likes citrus the best but some other kids might like the others you get them at 7-elevens and other stores you can look them up online under vojo extreme.
I am not completely sure of why the caffeine works but from my research it changes the way the blood flows to the brain or something to that effect so when in most people it makes them hyper it makes most children with ADHD mellow.