Sleep Issues

Some things that have helped some folks:

We always had "white noise" machines or fans to provide white noise for the kids. They couldn't sleep without them.

I and others I know cured their insomnia by finding a mold or mildew source in the bedroom and getting rid of it (or, in the case of musty books, removing them from the bedroom) and cleaning all the bedding very thoroughly.

I routinely recommend that people give Co-Q-10 in the morning rather than melatonin at night or, in extreme casese, give Co-Q-10 in the morning and melatonin at night. Co-Q-10 is the co-enzyme for melatonin and wakes the brain up in the morning. People are very prone to being deficient in it because it is made in the body in a complex 17 step process, so lacking something at any stage can cause a deficiency. If you take Co-Q-10 in the morning, about 12 hours later the body will produce more melatonin -- so, ideally, it should be given about 12 hours or so before the desired bedtime. However, if you give melatonin in the evening, it does NOT cause the body to produce more Co-Q-10.

My personal experience and the experience of my oldest son is that melatonin by itself made us too sleepy and we could not fully wake up for 2 or 3 days after taking it. I regularly take Co-Q-10 but only successfully took melatonin for about a month or two when bad withdrawal symptoms from stopping medication were making it impossible for me to sleep AT ALL for 3 or 4 weeks. During that time, my brain chemistry was so fried that I desperately needed help to make it go to sleep. Some autistics have similar issues. But if the sleep issues are not real extreme, I think giving Co-Q-10 as a first step can more gently help establish a healthy daily cycle of brain chemicals for the waking and sleeping cycles.

Be forewarned: if there are long-standing sleep issues, when one begins to sleep properly, there will be very vivid dreams because the mind is dream-deprived when it is sleep-deprived. (Smokers usually experience the same thing when they stop smoking.) Some people experience these as "nightmares" but it is completely normal. To my knowledge, there is no way to avoid going through this stage. Understanding that vivid dreams are to be expected can help you cope in case they are experienced as nightmares.