“Our daughter Verity is 11 years old. Verity absolutely loves to read and to write her own stories too. She loves our two cats and she also enjoys baking (although not the clearing up part afterwards!). She is very anxious about school, she has an autism spectrum diagnosis and has struggled with sleep since she was tiny.
Verity’s struggles with sleep mean that she is often tired, which adds to her anxiety, and she struggles to regulate her mood. She is often worried about being able to concentrate at school. This can be very stressful for the whole family, she has often been distressed at bedtime and in the mornings.
We are trying to help Verity from many different perspectives with therapy etc, but felt that sleep was the key element for her. It felt like a vicious circle of tiredness, anxiety, poor sleep. We wanted to make sure that we were doing everything we can to support her and your Sleep Advice Service was recommended to us by a friend who is also parent to a child with autism.
We were sent a range of useful guides and information, we used the library and we were assigned a Sleep Practitioner. We worked with the Sleep Practitioner over several months, identifying specific problem areas, looking at options that we could try and then reviewing what was working and what wasn’t. They also sent us helpful and relevant information along the way as different issues emerged.
We have adopted many of the suggestions that our Sleep Practitioner gave us. Verity now settles more quickly and seems to have a better quality of sleep. The whole process has also helped me to feel less stressed about the situation, I view her sleep differently now and I feel much more empowered to try different things and identify problems. We are finding fewer nights where bedtime is stressful, Verity settles herself better and the addition of things like a compression sheet have made a significant difference to how she feels at bedtime.
Our Sleep Practitioner was a very skilled listener, he was extremely patient and he made me feel like I am doing a good job as a parent, rather than failing my child. His suggestions were practical, helpful and effective and I felt that he was really focused on helping us. I felt very supported and he has really helped me, my daughter and our family.
I know that there is no miracle cure for my daughter’s sleep challenges, but I feel much calmer about the situation now, I realise that there are often small changes that we can make that will add up to a big difference. I really can’t thank Cerebra enough”.
