Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

[livingwith]

For a year and a half now my son has struggled with falling asleep. It became worst at the start of 7th grade. By the end of october 2007 i took out of school as he begged me to homeschool him. He had already missed 15 days of school and fell asleep often in class. I also noticed anxiety and depression increased. Being a divorced single mom with 2 other children i knew i couldn’t homeschool him next year so we started with the psychiatrist He was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (G...Read the full article

[RIGGS]

Well I commend you on your taking him off the meds and getting a diagnosis. Fortunately, there is some evidence that early onset may self correct itself and he may literally 'grow out' of it by the time he's ready for college. All you can really do for him is support him and encourage him, I think the worst feeling for children is the stigma that gets placed on them and the generalizations, name calling, derogatory remarks that everyone makes. It was hard for me growing up with this, even my mom didn't come around until I was in my mid thirties. I heard everything from lazy to thoughtless to inconsiderate even from her, the fact that your there with him and supporting him means he's already better off that 99% of the rest of us that just suffered through this with no support to speak of.

I dont' have any specific suggestions that I'm sure you havn't already heard/read about, but I'll reiterate the most important ones just so you know what moderately helped me.

No direct light (even candles) after 10pm (I do a turn and shut technique after 10pm I turn on the light behind me and shut the door to get to where I'm going, I also replaced all the light bulbs in my house with 40w soft bulbs, track lighting sucks I just unscrew all but 1 bulb in each set of tracks)

Comfortable bed can't stress this enough, I got a new bed 2 years ago and it's been a godsend

The bed is for sleeping, NOTHING else - if you have a tv in his room get it the hell out don't sit in bed with him for hours talking and reading or anything else this is crucial the bed has to be for sleeping and sleeping only if he associates it with anything else your setting him up for failure (and lord knows he has had enough of that feeling) if he's tired he goes to bed and if he's not asleep in 15-30 minutes tell him to get up and do something don't make him stay in bed if he's not tired there is NOTHING more depressing than staring at a ceiling for 4 hours wishing you could sleep don't make him suffer through that.

I hesitate to suggest medications at such a young age, people these days really are over medicated, and really nothing has proven even 50% effective for DSPS so while I take rezerem and that at least allows me to get to sleep once I'm tired it may do nothing for him.


Again, these are all things I'm certain you've already heard but these are the things I've found over the past 25 years have helped out the most. I really hope he's one of the few that just outgrow DSPS as it's not a fun road to travel. Just remember it's not his fault (I know you know that but let him know it as often as possible since NOONE else outside his family will likely ever understand SAPS) and encourage him to eat right and exercise (good exercise late at night can help with the sleeping process) and above all let him know he's special and find ways to help him succeed.


Toby


Toby

[willkil]

When I was 19 I had a psychiatrist misdiagnose me with depression and he simply wouldn't believe that I could have sleep problems unless they were caused by depression. It's good that your psychiatrist was more open-minded. Your doctor also sounds supportive. Unfortunately, DSPS is quite resistant to treatment AFAIK, and you've tried just about all the treatments.

However, it sounds like the school might not be as understanding as the doctors. If you are in the U.S., get him into special ed and get him an IEP. School's like to hide this from parents, but an IEP grants huge powers to the parent. Basically, all the rules that the school has can be rewritten for your son if he has an IEP. They just have to be replaced in the IEP with special rules for him. Sometimes administrators and teachers can be very stubborn about these things -- and who can blame them? They're underpaid and accustomed to students who don't care about learning. But if your son wants to learn and get good grades, it's their jobs to accommodate him. In the US, federal law says so.

The first rule that needs changed for him is the absenteeism. If he can usually get to sleep ~4am, have his school day start at noon or 1pm. Figure out which classes he really needs to attend to learn the subject matter and get those moved in his schedule to afternoon. Then have the absence rules waived for the morning classes. When I was in school, sports practices were mostly after school. If he's attending the afternoon classes, they should let him play basketball. In fact, intensive exercise like basketball would probably help him a lot with keeping a regular schedule, even if it is a noon-4am schedule. If you have any trouble with the school, get two lawyers. Get one who is a specialist in special ed situations and get a 2nd who is local and can go with you to meetings. But that's only if the school is unwilling to work with you. As long as they are willing to accommodate your son, leave the lawyers out.

Just because he stays up till 4am doesn't mean you have to. He can do homework midnight-4am. Then that frees up his evenings to be with family and friends, and you are free to go to work in the morning. As long as the doors are locked, he'll be perfectly safe while you're at work in the morning.

One thing you didn't mention trying is a dawn simulator. Since he'll need his room to be completely dark to get to sleep, that might help with waking up. For me, people's voices help me wake up. I can't have anything that is suddenly loud or bright, that doesn't work. But lights and talk radio that gradually come on help me. People talking in the room helps even better than talk radio.

As for dealing with the stigma of laziness, etc., he's gonna have to learn to deal with it. Many early morning people just don't seem to understand, but some do. He should look at it as an easy way to tell which people are truly worth having as friends and learn not to worry about what everybody else thinks.