7th November

Bonfire Weekend

This morning started at the usual early morning start, but thankfully this time, I managed to keep J quiet enough and not turn on any lights and wake his brother up. I felt I hadn’t slept a wink. That is something that a lot of people don’t know or not enough people talk about. Some people with ASD/ADHD have issues with sleep. They either struggle to settle for bed and can be up until the early hours, or they are up and down all night. Some may even struggle to settle and up and down all night. With both boys, they struggle to settle and can be up and down throughout the night.

While Jim and AJ slept in, we chilled out downstairs watching a film whilst having the fairy lights on as low light. I always found that having low light such as the fairy lights, helps bring a calm atmosphere for the boys. Also I love it as it feels cosy rather than having the main light on. AJ managed to lie until about 7ish which is a record for him as he is usually up at 5/5:30 every morning. It didn’t bother him as he obviously needed it. I gave them their breakfast as they tend to tell me when they want their breakfast. In the past, I’ve tried to keep to a routine as we tend to have less meltdown with a routine. Typically both boys tend to throw themselves out of the routine which can be a problem.

We decided around 10 that to take the boys out and explore down our local woods. Our first difficulty for getting the boys to wear their coats. AJ struggles to understand that even when it can look like it’s nice and sunny outside, in certain seasons, even though it’s sunny, it can be bitterly cold. Once we managed to get their coats on, we headed down to the woods. They love jumping around and explore especially a certain part that we call the waterfall. They explored the area to find sticks and stones/rocks to build things with. We realised it had been quite a few months since we had been down there as we had gone back to work and school and had a lot more relaxing weekends at home. We noticed that there was a decline in the area which was sad as its a beautiful place to go and relax in and enjoy being out in the fresh air. After a little while, we went off and explored the rest of the woods and to see if we could find new areas for us to find. AJ got a bit edgy as he likes to go to the usual places as he doesn’t like change very well.

After spending exploring the woods and taking a very slow stroll back home (J struggles walking any sort of distances), we came back home to chill out for the rest of the day. As I started to try and crack on with making lunch/dinner, AJ went into a full meltdown over wanting something for his game. To everyone else, meltdowns looks like tantrums, but in reality, they’re not as people with ASD struggle to express certain feelings such as being overly anxious or overwhelmed. With this meltdown, we felt he had been overwhelmed as it had been the first week back after the after term and he’s started to ‘mask’ at school so lets it all out at the weekend. It had gone on for over an hour and after doing lots of deep pressure with hugs and his weighted blanket as well as talking to his grandparents, we managed to help him calm down enough.

The time was now coming up for 1/1:30. Time for lunch. At the weekends, we try and have our main dinner at lunch time and something light in the evenings. We found this had worked better for us and we didn’t all go to bed on a heavy dinner. We tried a new pinch of nom recipes as we all like their recipes. AJ wasn’t keen on the main part of it as it was chicken which is something that can be hit and miss with him. J managed to eat all of his and then went onto AJ’s leftovers (whatever AJ didn’t want).

We spent the rest of the day, chilling out watching films and getting ready for a new week. Back to angle grind as my other half keeps saying. Felt I had a small win with J tonight as he managed to fall asleep quite quickly. Maybe going out for that walk did him some good. AJ was trickier as he seemed quite wired tonight. I don’t know if that’s because he’s nervous about tomorrow as he started his first after school club or what. It probably didn’t help that we had fireworks going off again for what must be the 5th or 6th night in a row. I somewhat forgot it was bonfire weekend didn’t I? Whoops! He managed to eventually settle. Even though today felt like crap, here’s hoping for a better week as I know there will be more good days than bad ones.