Sami explains how his family were able to adapt suggestions from one of our Sleep Practitioners leading to a better night’s sleep for the whole family:

“Six year old Viktor is an Autistic but very smart and energetic little lovely boy. He likes to play all day; he will not settle not even for a second. Like any other child, he likes pizza, sweets, going into park and spending time with his family. He seeks attention all the time and he does not like to do anything in any other way than his own agenda.

Parenting is hard, but parenting for a disabled child is astronomically harder. Viktor cannot, and perhaps he also does not want to, fit into the neurotypical society’s rules. Therefore, we had to adapt to his needs and to change our life around him.

We got in touch with the Sleep Advice Service because Viktor went through a phase when he was only sleeping 4-5 hours a night and that was interrupted.

We received a lot of information and support. Our Sleep Practitioner worked with me very closely and he offered me lots of suggestions and advice. To begin with we did not see significant improvement but after a while, we managed to adapt some of the suggestions and things started to get better.

For example, our Sleep Practitioner suggested using a diffused red light and some very low background noise, such as sea waves or the sound of the rain, so that Viktor could associate these with going to sleep and remaining asleep. Because of our personal sleeping arrangements, we found it difficult to introduce these as they disturbed our daughter.

So we looked for alternatives and installed a Solar System with all the planets moving in circles around the Sun, making a white sound and giving a soft yellow glow. Every night we turn it on, and Viktor, as well as Isabelle (our daughter) watch it moving round and round. Viktor even names the planets and then they go to sleep.

If he wakes up, very often my wife turns the Solar System back on and Viktor tries to go back to sleep. This, combined with a fragrance diffuser, have improved our family’s sleep and life quality a lot.

Although the problems are not completely resolved I found our Sleep Practitioner’s input very helpful. Viktor still wakes up some times through the night but it’s a lot less frequent – and that makes all the difference”.

We understand that if you have one child that doesn’t sleep, the whole family suffers. Our range of sleep services can help your child – and everyone in your family – get a good night’s sleep.