Month: October 2020

It’s been a tough week. He is going thru a phase just now saying “no spitting” then looking like he is going to spit, but then sucking it back in at the last second – though not always catching it on time and he actually does spit.

I have tried everything – I was saying nicely at the start, that’s horrible stop that, its disgusting. He kept doing it. I tried to ignore it. That didn’t work, he got louder and louder until I had to acknowledge him. I tried shouting at him to stop, which I felt terrible about, I hate shouting at him, but it didn’t work anyway! Now, as a last resort as I have reached the end of my patience, I will stop whatever he is doing if he does it. Take the iPad off him. Take his book or toy off him. Whatever he has in his hand I will take away from him. Last night he wouldn’t stop, so I put him to his bed an hour early.

He normally goes to his bed around 8.30pm so last night was 7.30pm – and he was still awake at 11pm when I was going to my bed!

We got new windows fitted yesterday, and due to them having to settle for 24 hours, we had no curtains or blinds up. The room was dark-ish, but the street light shone through. I was putting his lack of sleeping down to the room been brighter than normal. Until I got up this morning.

I got him up and when I put the light on, I saw that the reason he wasn’t sleeping last night. He had picked all the silicone from the bottom of where the new window was sealed.

I am already exhausted from dealing with the “no spitting” issue all week, this has pushed me over the edge. He is away to school now and I have spent the last 30 mins in tears.

Sometimes being an autism mum breaks you. Today I am broken.

It’s been an interesting few months to say the least! The coronavirus pandemic has had such a huge impact on everyone.

Back in March when we went into lockdown, we were so fortunate to have a run of great weather. We are lucky to have a garden and a big trampoline. We would have been lost without it. Our son needs to jump and we see a huge difference in him when he doesn’t get that release.

At the start, we stayed home all the time and we were in the garden for fresh air. But it got to the point that we really needed out. The restrictions allowed for an hour of outdoor excersize a day, but it was a few weeks before we took advantage of this. My husband was still working , though he was only working mornings, and I was working from home, so it was me and our son 24/7. Around 10am we went out a walk each day. It was quiet so I felt safe, and we went the same way each day which took around 40 minutes. I walked and he was on his scooter. I tried a few times to get him to go a different way, but he kept to the same loop each time. He was happy with the route so I didn’t push it. There was enough change happening so this was a bit of stability.

My parents didn’t see him for 3 months. Going for seeing him almost every day to not seeing him at all was a big shock to everyone. He asked for them alot but they spoke every day which helped.

The carers centre called us to make sure we were ok. I can honestly say we were great. I was reading on the Facebook groups that I am in, of lots of kids really struggling with the change in routine, but we settled into a new routine quite quickly. Breakfast, schoolwork, walk, lunch, schoolwork.

I thought lockdown was going to be really tough but it has actually been ok. Our son needs alot of attention and can be very demanding. It has been challenging at times, but overall things have went well.

I saw this online and liked it. No author name quoted to give credit.