Is Your Child Getting Enough Zzz’s?

Are your children getting enough Zzz’s?

Do you find your kids awakening often in the middle of the night?

Sleep disturbances are seen in over 50 % of kids with ASD.

Why so high?

There are many possible medical reasons such as allergies, reflux, gut dysbiosis, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, sleep apnea, medication/supplement side effects, anxiety, inflammation, low blood sugar, seizures, mitochondrial dysfunction, infections, and overexposure to EMFs are some of the more common reasons.

With anyone, the lack of sleep or disturbed sleep increases the stress hormone cortisol which has detrimental consequences on learning, memory, emotions, irritability, and metabolism in general.

In my son’s case, the first sign of him having ulcerative colitis was a change in his sleep pattern. The pain was awakening him, but he couldn’t articulate this.

Finding the root cause is the most effective approach, although you may try something like melatonin until figuring it out.

Just treating with melatonin, GABA or magnesium doesn’t always do the job.

After discussing the history of when it started, it could be as simple as removing stimulating medication, supplements, or caffeine from soft drinks.

Sometimes, it involves further investigation with lab work and studies such as a sleep study or EEG looking for seizures.

We discuss all of these factors in the Autism Healing Program.

For parents, it’s important to get our kids good sleep hygiene consisting of avoiding food at least 2 hours before bed, avoiding caffeine, removing blue light/device exposure too close to bed, and creating a cool soothing environment to promote sleep.

When we find the cause of the sleep disturbance and address it, we see dramatic improvement.

#sleep #autism