Our Yesterday...Wedding...hotel...then NT Ok, so I know I was taking a HUGE chance by taking Landyn to all of these things, but my cousin got married yesterday, it was somewhat small (about 100 guests), and since it was an hour away, my Dad had said he would rent us a hotel room so we didn't have to drive back. Heres the odd part. Landyn was the best behaved child there. (there were like 35-40 others)   Granted he wanted to stay in his stroller and only his stroller, and didn't want to even play or look at other kids. He also didn't like when people would come and try to talk to him. But he just turned his head, and they walked away saying it was cute. So he took about a 20 minute nap during the wedding, and then it was off to the reception. (the wedding was at 430pm, and the reception started at 7) so it was a long time for him. And he had been up since about 915am. Taking no other naps than the one during the wedding. We left the reception around 815pm or so, and went to the hotel cause Landyn was getting tired. Well he was hell bent that he wasn't going to bed anytime soon, so I decided at 10pm to take him to the pool for a little but. I figured it would help get him tired and all. Well he finally fell asleep at 1145pm....then woke up screaming at 1233am. (trust me i remember)....it took about 35-40 minutes for me to finally get him calmed down, hoping that as every minute passes, someone wouldn't call the front desk and complain. He finally went back to bed around 2am. Then awoke again whimpering at 444am. He only whined a little bit, and sat up and looked around. I was on the bed, and he was in a play pen right next to me...so i layed there and watched him, and after about 10 minutes of looking around, he layed back down and went to sleep. We got home today around 1130am, and he layed down to take a nap. He slept from 12pm-4pm. I think the NT was a lot for him to handle. And just the other day, I said we hadn't had one for a while...guess i must've jinxed myself... BUT....what made me really happy, is knowing that my Severe ASD son was the BEST behaved one there...Compared to all the other "normal" children, he wasn't running around, yelling, screaming, or playing with food. In a way I was proud, but the family that I have talked to in the past about the hard times we have, just kinda looked at me like, "you got it easy". He was FAR from easy once we got back to the hotel. I found what woke him up though, was to sit on the bathroom counter with me holding him, and me throwing ice chunks in the sink and breaking them. He finally woke up and thought it was FUNNY....I didn't quite see it, but we went through 1/2 a bucket of ice in the mean time... When I ran into people I hadn't seen a long time, and were asking why he needs therapy and such when I told them, they were asking, "well are you married, boyfriend, how do you do it?" It's hard to just come out somehow and say, "are you going to tell me if something wasn't wrong with your child, you wouldn't step up to the plate and do anything you possibly could to help them out and live a "normal" life?" But I didn't... Hope you all had a great weekend... Wow! He did awesome! I often feel my dd with asd is WAY easier than my nt older teen who has always been high maintanance since birth. I am so happy he tolorated such a busy day..that is huge and one we couldnt do till our dd was at least 6 years old.  The sleep issue sounds very familiar..we had night terrors that always seemed to follow big days like this~I am so glad he got that long nap!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend :) Good job, Landyn. See, mom--you did a great job and still are!   God Bless, Kelly That's great news. Be proud! And I love the ice trick... I found my oldest son always woke up screaming the night after a play date.  Playing in his regular school setting was okay, but a different setting was overstimulating and affected his sleep. It's nice that his reaction to the wedding and reception made it possible for you to be there and enjoy it.
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