If waking your autistic and ADHD child in the morning results is arguments, losing your patience and shouting you aren’t alone. This blog will help you understand why mornings are so hard.
If your child finds it hard to fall asleep at night but is then almost impossible to wake in the morning, it can feel like you’re fighting two different battles: one at bedtime, and a completely different one before school. Both are exhausting, and both are usually connected.
This sleep pattern is called Delayed Sleep Phase (DSP). Once asleep, neurodivergent children who have a DSP usually sleep well. The problem is falling asleep in the first place, and then being woken in the morning for school while their body is still screaming at them ”I NEED more sleep”. It is hard for them and you.
What's happening with sleep hormones
Melatonin, the hormone that creates drowsiness, is often low at your child’s bedtime (making it hard for them to fall asleep) and still too high come the morning (making it hard for them to wake up). The body clock is essentially running on a different time zone and we need to help get it back on track.
This sleep pattern is called Delayed Sleep Phase (DSP). Once asleep, neurodivergent children who have a DSP usually sleep well. The problem is falling asleep in the first place, and then being woken in the morning for school while their body is still screaming at them ”I NEED more sleep”. It is hard for them and you.
Why rushing makes mornings worse
When a child is left to sleep as long as possible in the morning in an attempt to catch up on the sleep they missed the night before they are then often being rushed out of the door to school. Rushing often makes things worse and compounds the problem further making it even harder for neurodivergent children to meet your expectations. For many neurodivergent children, being rushed and feeling out of control is deeply dysregulating, which can make them slower, not faster, and even later for school.
Three steps to get them back on the same time zone as you
Step 1
Record: Track, in your phone, exactly when bedtime starts and when your child actually falls asleep. Do this for a week before changing anything.
Step 2
Fix the mornings: Decide on an ideal wake time and stick to it, seven days a week, without deviating (teenagers may need a compromise, try to negotiate a short 30-minute lie-in weekends). Wake to daylight and stay in full brightness for at least 30 minutes.
Step 3
Build in at least 20 minutes of buffer time before asking them to get out of bed and starting their day. In this time they can think about what is coming up today and what they need to do.
Step 4
Delay bedtime: Rather than starting bedtime earlier and earlier out of hope, push it back to around 30 minutes before your child actually falls asleep. If bedtime currently starts at 8pm but sleep doesn’t come until 10.30pm, try getting into bed at 10pm instead. A neurodivergent child falling asleep within around 30 minutes is the goal — you don’t want the bed itself to become a wakeful and frustrating space for them.
Track it before you tackle it
Recording what’s actually happening for a week, before making any changes, makes a huge difference to how effective these steps are. It’s also exactly the kind of pattern I help parents make sense of during one-to-one support.
If mornings feel like waking the dead in your house, and you’d like me to walk beside you for two months helping you get into a new rhythm with your child’s sleep I’d love to chat with you for free.
For just £9.99 it will talk you through how to resolve a delayed sleep phase.
Download HereYou’re not doing anything wrong, your child’s body clock has just got confused, it doesn’t need to stay this way
