Sleep

Children with complex Autism frequently have very challenging difficulties with sleep; the issues themselves vary, but these are common: 

• Taking a very long time to settle and go to sleep
• Early or very early waking and staying awake for long periods
• Bed wetting
• Refusing to stay in their own bed and joining parents
• Combinations of some (or all) of these

Each of these issues is a behavioural issue and with the right support and commitment can be worked through.

In 2019 Freemantles, working with a group of Special Schools in Surrey, trained some staff as Sleep Practitioners through the Sleep Scotland programme. Click here to visit the Sleep Action website.

 We are able to offer two types of intervention:

• group training which can support parents to understand how they can establish changes in sleep behaviours
• in the most challenging situations we can offer a more intensive programme of 1:1 support which can extend through the implementation stage.

The team of trained staff that we have is quite small and all have other jobs to do too. This will mean that this offer will  be limited and there may be a wait before we can offer the support.