It’s 1:30 am and my son climbs into my bed.
It’s not all that unusual for this to happen. In fact, we’re batting about .500 with him sleeping through the night. At age six. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. I’m sure there’s a pattern and explanation to why but I really don’t know.
It’s usually around three or four am. So 1:30 is a bit early.
Normally he’ll climb into bed, settle in and go back to sleep fairly quickly. And by setting in I mean smash himself up against me with my arm wrapped underneath him.
This time, he was incredibly restless. Flipping from side to side. Spinning *in* in the bed. Head on the pillow then feet on the pillow. I was also sick with a bad cold and I couldn’t take it.
I asked him what was going on.
“I need a warmed up yogurt.” he replied.
A “warmed up yogurt” is Howie’s go-to drink when his body isn’t feeling right. It’s a Stonyfield yogurt smoothie warmed up in the microwave for 30 seconds. He then drinks it through a straw in his favorite chair. The combination of the just right temperature plus the sucking through the straw plus the comfort of the chair helps him regulate himself.
“It’s 1:30 in the morning. I’m not getting you a yogurt.”
“But my foot hurts! I need to go downstairs and have a WARMED UP YOGURT!” And he started to cry.
Out of fear of waking my other two kids and my husband, I begrudgingly took him downstairs. He settled in his chair and drank his smoothie.
“Can I snuggle with you?” he asked.
Without waiting for my response, he climbed onto the couch next to me. Within two minutes, he was back to sleep again.
Of course, I was there wide awake. Playing sensory detective.
Maybe he’s getting sick too? I thought. It would make sense. His sleep and behavior change about two to three days before he’s actually showing signs of illness. Could this be why he needed his yogurt?
But something wasn’t quite right. It was the “my foot hurts” part.
I thought back to right before he fell asleep earlier in the night. At his actual bedtime.
He had asked for a yogurt then too. And said his foot hurt.
And I had said no. It was bedtime and we were done with food and drink.
I remember that as he fell asleep I heard his stomach rumbling and had a little pang of guilt that I didn’t let him have the yogurt.
Could it be that he was just hungry? And instead of knowing that his stomach was the one that hurt, he said it was his foot?
Out of all the eight senses, the one that my son has the hardest time expressing is interoception.
He can tell me when something smells bad or feels wrong or tastes weird in his mouth. He’s learned to cover his ears or wear his headphones when the world is too loud. He’s beginning to ask for sensory breaks in school to go jump on the trampoline or spin outside when needed, and he’s sitting on his weighted lap pad at circle time because the floor is too hard.
But knowing when he’s actually hungry or tired or needing to use the bathroom…he’s still struggling to learn those signs from his body. As verbal as he is, we used PECS for toilet training when he was younger because he couldn’t put the words together fast enough to tell us what he needed.
Hunger is just not a feeling that motivates him or connects with him. It’s pretty rare that I actually hear him say “I’m hungry”. It’s usually “I need a warmed up yogurt.” We follow it up with statements like “you need to eat something that you can chew.” Which is followed by ten minutes of moaning and complaining until he eats a fruit bar. Or a few pretzels.
He woke up this morning in a decent mood. As I write, he’s sitting back in his favorite chair drinking his before school warmed up yogurt. No complaints about his foot hurting, no signs of illness.
In about a day or two, I’ll know if he was actually getting sick or if he was just hungry.
I just wish he could tell me now.
Happy eating
“Don’t speak
I know just what you’re saying
So please stop explaining
Don’t tell me cause it hurts
Don’t speak
I know what you’re thinking
I don’t need your reasons
Don’t tell me cause it hurts” – Don’t Speak by No Doubt
Comments
cynkingfeeling
Over the summer, I began to wonder if my son under-registers hunger. He would get cranky for some unknown reason. One day, after I was particularly grumpy because I was hungry, I had an “aha!” moment. If nothing else seems to work, we try to feed our son.
Of course, it all still feels like a crap shoot. The food could simply be a distraction from whatever the real source of frustration is.
I hope your guy is feeling okay and doesn’t get sick.
Alysia
Under registers hunger. That’s exactly is. I’m going to use that at our next school meeting. Because it affects his afternoons at school when he doesn’t eat there. Thank you.
Mom2LittleMiss
What a dilemma! I wish I knew what to tell you, but we go through the same challenges with Little Miss… well, except for the part where she almost NEVER asks for food.
Hang in there, my friend. And glad to see that you’re feeling better!
Niksmom
This actually makes a lot of sense. Yogurt has a high magnesium and calcium content. Magneisum is great for promoting good sleep. Magnesium deficiencies can often manifest in non-specific (i.e., no identifiable reason for them) muscle pains.
I am NOT usually a purveyor of “woo” thinking, you know that. However, I also see that, when I really stop and listen to what Nik is telling me and I let him dictate what his body needs…whether it’s about food or an activity, he settles faster, does better overall.
Might be worth trying a small quantity of magneisum (you can either get a powder you can mix in something or a liquid) at bed time to see if that helps him sleep any more peacefully. I take it from time to time when I’m having muscle aches and not sleeping well. The nights I do take it, I generally sleep better. Maybe not longer, but more restfully.
Alysia
You are very smart. I will check it out! Thank you my friend.
Darcy
I vote yes on the mag as well. Be careful not to do too much – it causes diarrhea in doses to large. You can also add it to his bath. Or soak his feet in it if no time/inclination for a bath. Feet absorb well.
C is like this too tho – always discombobulated a few days before he gets sick. We always look back and go, “AHHH, THAT’s what was going on. Duh.” Hindsight is 20/20.
Alysia
Yup. Stupid hindsight
I will check out the magnesium. Thank you!
Sybil
Every night my son has to have a snack before bed. He says that he’s hungry and thirsty, but I’m not sure that he really is. Especially if he’s eaten a substantial dinner just an hour before his self-proclaimed “snack time.” I think it has to do with routine and maybe does calm him. Not sure. But, if we have to skip that routine for a night, bedtime is often more difficult. Wanted to say also, I can relate with this line… “And by setting in I mean smash himself up against me with my arm wrapped underneath him.”…we also experience this nightly.
Alysia
Whatever works with bedtime! I’m thinking we may add in one more yogurt. Trying not to break the bank!
And glad I’m not alone with the sleep routine
Karen V.
Beautifully written. Sorry about the cold for you and lack of sleep. We often do not get enough rest when we are ill (ugh!). This really struck home with me because my son is a lot like yours with the behavioral changes and disruption just a couple days before he gets sick and my son often does not have that interoception sense to understand hunger, bathroom needs or where it hurts either… That whole routine of warmed up yogurt, rocking and sucking on the straw does sound very soothing. And cuddly with mommy is best of all.
Hope you are feeling better quickly and he does not get sick!!
Hope you are feeling better soon
Alysia
Thank you! I think we all need some rest.
Jenny from the Block
Very interesting. My DD has issue with regulating/recognizing hunger/potty too. She always wants to snack before bed. Food is such a topic! Luckily, she is a good sleeper, while DS is not at all. Good luck!
Alysia
Thank you! It’s definitely our trickiest battle. The sleep/food/toileting. Sigh.
EHCMom
Our daughter (5) has also rarely mentioned much about being hungry, full, hot, cold, tired, wet, etc. We keep Smart Beat Non Dairy Cheese (high in protein) on hand at all times. We call it “happy cheese” because within ten minutes of eating it, her behavior improves. Our day care recently started keeping a 6 cup muffin tin on the table with an assortment of healthy snacks that she can pick at until lunch, and her behavior improved. She has a lot of blood sugar issues, and not being able to tell us when she’s hungry exacerbates the problem. I would imagine waking up in the middle of the night hungry would be a deal breaker for going back to sleep. Yogurt tends to be high in protein so it sticks with you longer.
What are PECS for toilet training?
Alysia
Happy cheese! I love it.
PECS are special picture cards used to help with communicate. We had pictures of a toilet and the toileting steps on our wall. When my son was learning to tell us he needed to go, he’d point to the picture to let us know. Somehow that worked better for him than trying to get the word out. Here’s an example: http://trainland.tripod.com/pecs5.htm
Heather Finnegan
My 7 year old still has interoception issues…and may always….food and toileting will be the death of me!
EHCMom
Ditto for me Heather. The last three days have been extremely taxing. I had to call out of work the last two days for the morning because my day care provider hasn’t been handling things well the last week or so. When my DD is finally toilet trained, I’m going to write an article about all the books I’ve read about toilet training and toileting issues, the umpteen theories people have about why she won’t use the toilet. The best month we’ve had so far was when she was on Listening Therapy. Then we changed therapists, and the new one took it away and said the first one was loaning it in violation of their licensing agreement. I understand that, but couldn’t they have let us keep one CD until we could order the program? Here we are now a month after they took it away, I still haven’t been able to get the CDs, earphones, etc. because you need your OT’s referral. I finally used by squeeky wheel method and called everyone at the OT office until someone finally got off their butt to order the Listening Therapy package. Now they tell me it will be 2-3 more weeks. Meanwhile, the toileting has taken a nose dive. It’s so disheartening to see improvement and then lose it all because of the people who are supposed to be helping her.
Bright Side of Life
I am going to throw you a completely different curve ball than hunger!! Could the yogurt just be a pattern that he is used to? Because he didn’t have the yogurt before bed (and he is used to having it)? I have a couple of kids in my school who are like this at home…. they are so fixed on their patterns of how they do/like things that they become quite stressed when there is a variation to the pattern. Just thinking aloud… I could be barking up the wrong tree!
Kimberly Aikman
Thank you for explaining what PECS are.
I suggest trying something similar for learning what hungry means. I’m an adult on the autism spectrum and when I lost all my language skills due to a stroke twelve years ago, I also lost all my body signals because of my sensory integration dysfunction. I didn’t remember what hungry felt like.
When I was hungry, two things happened: 1. I would get visual and memory cues of how I interpreted hunger and 2. I would feel all the physical aspects of hunger like blood sugar dropping, sweating, etc. and thought I was dying.
One visual and memory cue that I got when my stomach was rumbling with hunger but I couldn’t feel it/process it was the scene from the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, when the Millennium Falcon lands in the worm monster/space slug’s stomach and escapes while the monster’s teeth are closing in. Another visual I had was of fish being fed to a sea lion with the same jagged teeth.
The reason I reacted to the physical aspects of being hungry was because of the metaphor, “dying of hunger.” My language skills were erased by my stroke and I had to relearn metaphors, similes, etc. It took me two years to practise feeling hungry instead of feeling as though I would die from hunger. It’s funny now, because there’s a TV commercial with teenagers “dying of hunger” and their mom tells them to eat Totino’s pizza rolls.
Growing up in a sensory over-stimulating world created a lot of trauma for me as it does for kids nowadays. Even the most benign experience, like watching a movie, can sometimes wind up as visual cues. Since the autism spectrum brain takes everything literally, metaphors are really hard to grasp.
If you could find pictures, not literally of food, but of feelings and sensory friendly images like feeding animals at the zoo or a family meal/picnic and teach your son to make friendly associations of “hunger,” you could help make the pathways from visual to visceral feeling of hunger. You could also practise feeling hungry with him so he can learn by your example.
I explain how the autism spectrum brain works on my blog, Blue Thumbtack.
http://bluethumbtack.com/2012/06/17/a-users-guide-to-the-autism-spectrum-brain-part-one/
Kindly,
Kimberly