r/AutisticParents

My daughter has been chewing on her hair and her shirt collars, just like me at the same age. But now we have better options than just yelling at kids to stop doing that, so I confirmed they’re allowed in school and got her one with rainbows and one with hearts and told her they were coming and she’d be able to chew on them instead of her hair. She told me her friend had one too, and hers arrived today, and she loves them and is so excited. I’m so happy I can do better for her.

(Also, can we get a flair that’s something more like parenting victory/achievement? Nothing was really appropriate to that)

Hello - am autistic and diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. I also likely have sleep-induced hypermobility epilepsy. I am waiting on a detailed sleep study. My wife is neurotypical.

I am also a new father to a 13-day-old son.

Before he was born, my wife and I had several conversations about becoming parents. It's been something we both have wanted for a long time. And these diagnoses came later in our marriage. So, we decided that she would be the primary parent and what that meant. I would basically take care of much of the logistics and home needs and help where I could with our son. My wife would focus on our son and her recovery.

Fast-forward to today, and my wife is CRUSHING it. As an example, today, I woke up with serious morning depression like I do everyday. I was able to soothe our son and lie in bed. Meanwhile, my wife showered, made breakfast, took him back, and put him down for a nap while putting together a collage for our son's photo album.

She is basically Michael Jordan, and I am barely Scotty Pippin. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Whatever comparison you wish. And I am struggling with this. The thing is, we basically talked about this situation. We knew this was a distinct possibility, but I had been hoping for something different.

Has anyone ever dealt with something like this? How do your handle it? How do you feel like you let go of any shame or guilt?

My husband and I have been struggling to figure out how to help my brother-in-law (27M). He’s very high functioning, but has very low self-confidence. He’s been at a local college for ~8 years now and still lives with his parents. He’s never had a job and sleeps most of the days (only awake from 10pm-6am most nights). He recently quit enrolling into classes and never got his degree.

We think he’s struggling with depression and self-esteem issues. He’s very smart and capable, but he doesn’t see that in himself (my husband and I think his parents haven’t really pushed him to do much, baby him, and let his diagnosis define him).

We aren’t really sure what to do. We’ve been actively trying to spend more time with him since the only place he likes to visit (other than his own home) is our house. He’s coming over this weekend, and we are trying to decide if/how to address our concerns.

He’s always said he wants to get married and have kids, but we’re scared that he won’t find that on the path he’s currently on. Partly because he doesn’t have any opportunities to meet people with his current lifestyle.

We want to encourage him to get a job, find something he enjoys, or maybe even get back in school, but we don’t want to be pushy or make him feel bad. Again, he’s extremely high functioning and smart. We want to help, but we don’t want to overstep or unintentionally make things worse.

Any advice or thoughts?

Hello parents of multiple kiddos. First I want to thank you all if you stick around to read my full post. I have a level 2 autistic kiddo who is 5. He has a 3 yr old sister and we have another baby girl due soon. Aside from his autism diagnosis our little man has gone through a lot. He was born with a cleft hard palet. He has had multiple surgeries since birth starting with ear tubes at 5 months. This had played a huge downside to his development. We had him in speech and occupational therapy starting before his 2nd birthday. This past January we made the decision to pull him from therapy temporarily. This was due to a move and me being pregnant. I honestly feel horrible that it's been so long a break. His therapists had plans for a break anyway because he hadn't had one since starting. We found a clinic near by and plan to try to get him back on track after baby is born. We even got his IEP and he'll be starting school next fall.

My biggest reason for making this post though has more to do with his sister and sister to be. I'll be calling them girl 1 and girl 2. Girl 1 the 3 yr old is very loving but also due to her age has little boundaries and is very high energy. Lately it's been really difficult to get her to give him the space he needs and constantly is taking everything from him. She'll take toys from him that she had no interest in. Including ones that we bought specifically for him. It's been a huge challenge and I'll admit I'll lose my patience when trying to teach her that it's wrong and hurtful to take things. We resorted to exchange, for example we ask brother if we can trade a toy. If he doesn't want to he doesn't need to. For awhile this worked wonders but all of a sudden it's like it never happened. She's been having melt downs and tantrums that will last hours if she doesn't get what she wants. I've gotten to the point where I lose my own temper (I have adult ADHD) so regulation for all of us can be pretty hard. So there's been times I give in and just ask him to give up his toys and even one on one time with me just to calm her. I have so much guilt doing this but honestly I'm at my wits end. I want to be fair to both of them. With girl 2 on the way I just really need and want a system that's fair to all kiddos. My momma heart hurts so bad. I welcome any words of encouragement and any positive advice or feedback.

I've scoured the web trying to find any similar stories or advice... But the only thing I seem to find are those struggling to give the Neurotypical kiddo/kiddos as much attention as their autistic kiddo. This is definitely a big concern of mine but for me right now it's overall balance. ATM I feel my Neurotypical kiddo (girl 1) is getting more of my attention. I want to strengthen my sons development and I can't do that when I'm constantly focused on his sisters behaviors or giving her attention so he doesn't get overwhelmed and overstimulated.

Sincerely, a struggling pregnant momma

Hi everyone,

I'm a woman, autistic and have a loving husband and a sweet 2,5 year old daughter.

My husband is very very likely also autistic (but still not diagnosed, as the waiting time is years where we live).

Our daughter is an absolute delight. Super easy, very very smart. Barely any meltdowns, and just generally a very happy child. She loves her daycare and have friends there, and they love her back. I'm honestly not sure how we managed to have a child like that 😅 she loves babies and pretends that her dolls are a little brother (some of the ones in her daycare have baby siblings, it's not something we have introduced).

The question now is: I/we really want another child. I'm getting older, so it has to be a decision made soon, but I have so much doubt about it. Being a mother to my daughter has been a walk in the park, but what if the second is totally different? What if a high need second ends up destroying what we have?

How have you guys made a decision about several children or not, and what have you done to prepare if yes? How hard has it been to go from one to two children? Has any of you regretted it, or maybe all your fears turned out to be nothing?

Thank you in advance ❤️

Also: I'm in a country with an extensive social security system, and neither money nor help will be an issue. My husband works, but I don't, and we have a great network around us with my parents and good friends.

Hey, I need some support, kind words and tips.

I've got two kids (5 and 8) and life has been extremely demanding since their birth. Both have their own special needs; the youngest is extremely smart, social and stubborn. However, he got a spinal injury from illness that results in quite a lot of extra care. The oldest is likely ND. He's found quite well now, but still has trouble socializing and no real friends which results in him always being at home (and never quiet).

Our support network is small, not a lot of family or friends nearby and my wife and I are exhausted. My wife stopped working to become the primary caretaker (because of the extra needs of the youngest we also have to go to his school twice a day for extra care). When at home I do a lot if the care as well.

My work currently is also a mess. After a takeover most of my old team left, we got a new manager that I don't gel with (and who only looks at productivity while burning out the rest of my colleagues as well).

My wife and I have been burned out for a long time now. Done a lot to try and improve it, but every place I got right now demands energy. This has put a lot of strain on the relationship between my wife and me as well. We are in therapy, but it's going to take time.

The toughest thing right now is that I'm tired and after the kids are in bed I can't handle social interactions at all. Same for my wife right now. However, I desperately crave social connection and I feel that I need this to recover at the same time. Running helps partially, but it feels like there is a giant hole where my soul should be. Like I'm empty..

Fair warning up top that 1. I've recently started therapy, and 2. I'm probably going to try to get some sleep after posting this because tomorrow is going to be hard. tl;dr at the bottom

I'm (audhd, 34nb) a stay-at-home parent of almost 16mo twins. I haven't had a full night's sleep since I was five months pregnant and the heartburn kicked in. This is gonna be a mess of background information, but I'll try to keep it to the relevant points.

Background: My abusive mom reentered my life during my pregnancy and drove a wedge between my spouse and I, and I haven't talked to her since February. The distance is helping, but she did serious damage while she was here and dredged up old behaviors I thought I'd unlearned.

I had a job last fall, but our car got repoed so I had to quit. I had to rehome my reptiles because we can't afford to feed them. My dogs and cat haven't been to the vet in too long, and we can hardly afford to feed them, either. We almost lost our house but got new loan terms with an interest rate that makes me wanna barf. Our only income right now is my spouse's GI Bill money for school, with WIC and EBT to supplement. I can't figure out how to get my dx paperwork and apply for disability.

I'm in chronic pain from scoliosis, botched epidural, and suspected Ehlers-Danlos. I'm supposed to be in PT for my back, but lol, when? Mydaughter has me up like six to ten times a night still if I don't let her cosleep. Our house is a wreck, and I can't get it clean. I just move the mess around from room to room trying to figure out what to do with it. Our house was a fixer-upper when we moved in, but we haven't fixed it. It's just getting worse, and I'm making it even more so.

Which brings us to:

I'm having meltdowns a couple times a week at this point, and they're bad. I'm breaking things (bowls, doors, my clothes), injuring myself (hitting myself in the head, kicking things I shouldn't, cutting my hair, tearing at my breasts because they won't stop touching me), being verbally abusive to myself and my spouse. They try to help, but they try to help wrong and eight times out of ten, the meltdown will turn into a nasty fight where I say the ugliest shit that I absolutely do not mean. But when I'm in that fight mode, my mother's training comes back to the forefront and I just spit out the most vile, venomous shit with zero chance for a filter to catch it. I started therapy 2 weeks ago, and it's eased up a bit, but not enough yet. This last meltdown/fuckup a couple days ago was really, really bad and ended with me calling 911 & my spouse being escorted to spend a few days at a crisis triage center. I don't want to go into details about what happened, but I regret the whole episode more than anything else in my entire life. My spouse will be home tomorrow and we still love each other, but things are going to be weird while we figure out how to afford marriage counseling.

But anyway, a lot of shit's been going on and it's not gonna get easier any time soon. I don't know what to do. I'm so fucking tired and there's nothing to be done about it.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to cope and make it through without making it worse?

tl;dr have twin toddlers, no sleep, no money, no support. My inability to cope is going to kill my marriage or actually my spouse. I don't want to hurt my family by constantly flipping out and turning into a literal demon, but I have no peace and no peace is forthcoming. I've started therapy. How do I deal?

Sorry for the length, but this is also kind of a vent, I guess. Love y'all, have a good night.

Im a new mom to a 4 months old baby boy and I struggle with the uncertainty of night wakings. For the past few weeks, he only woke up 1-2 times per night. But the last few nights, he is waking up every hour... i think it's a mix a sleep regression and teething.

I am always anxious when i go to bed because i dont know how many times he will wake up during the night (and when) and it drives me crazy not to know. How do you all cope with this? I cannot be stressed of going to bed every night for the next few years 😅

Hi all, I am audhd (most likely) and my husband is adhd we have a 2.5 year old daughter now she is literally my mini, hyper verbal, silly, amazing, but super shy and slow to warm up! We are now pregnant with a boy coming in October which we are soooo excited about! My daughter needs a boy her energy level will fit perfect and she is obsessed with her boy cousins, one of which is probably on the spectrum but no one in my family has gotten their kids diagnosed, they just work with the kiddo and they have all done good. Anyways!! What should I expect from a boy? Have your boys been high energy compared to your daughters? My daughter is a rule follower so always listens, she sleeps 11 hours at night and naps perfectly. Of course I know this may change! What should I maybe expect!? How were your sons compared to your daughters on the spectrum or just even adhd? Highly doubt we will have a NT child.