autism bedtime routine

Closed Captioning For The Win

~ NickyB. ~ 12 Comments

For the last few months we have noticed that MJ only watches the TV with the closed captioning on. We have no idea how he knew what that was or how to use it! All of a sudden we realized that every single show he watches now has the closed captioning feature on. What I notice is that he is reading everything as he is watching the show and I believe it helps him understand and process what he’s seeing more easily. The funny thing is that now my daughter is doing the same thing as she watches television. She says, “mommy I like it!” Recently while watching television with my husband, we both looked at each other and said “closed captioning,” because we could not understand what a particular character was saying lol. He now has all of us using that feature so much more. I’m actually glad that he is using it as he seems to be enjoying his favorite television shows even more these days😊.

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About Last Night…

~ NickyB. ~ 6 Comments

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Yesterday was actually a very nice day…The morning was peaceful…The afternoon was fun…the evening, not so much!  Mj had a crying episode last night.  This time he cried for a little over an hour.  We did our normal bedtime routine and I noticed he was a little sad but I figured he just didn’t want to go to bed.  I closed his room door and went downstairs.  A few minutes later my husband informed me that MJ was crying.  “I tried to figure out what was wrong with him, but it’s difficult to understand because he is crying” my husband said.  I decided that I would try and figure out what the issue was.  In the middle of his episode, all I could decipher were the words “I can’t do it” and “I’m sad”.  I tried to think about what happened before bedtime…Could it be the fact that he saw Morgan and me dancing without him? Hmmm…Just that one event was probably enough to make him feel sad (even though we invited him to dance and he refused).  I went into my bag of tricks…I sang him the “Mj” song I made up when he was a baby (sometimes it works to make him laugh, or feel comforted), I tried to talk to him and reassure him that he is the most wonderful boy in the world.  I hugged him continually and I also asked him if he wanted a special dance with mommy.  Then I “played my last card” which was asking him if he wanted to watch Looney Tunes for a little (wanting him to be distracted)…He said “NO”!  That’s when I knew it would be a while before he stopped crying.  My husband came in the room and tried his methods but MJ just wouldn’t stop crying…After trying all of the above ALL over again, I once again asked him if he wanted to watch Looney Tunes…He said “Ok mommy”.  Finally, after about 20 minutes of watching TV he stopped crying.  I turned off the TV and repeated our nighttime routine…He was sleeping after 5 minutes.  I was very thankful that he began to feel better or both of us would have cried ourselves to sleep!  This morning he woke up feeling great and he had a wonderful day at school.  Right now all is well at home.  🙂

God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)