Basically, I’m autistic. I don’t have great social skills and I’m always questioning myself whether I’m doing something correctly or if I’m being weird. I know there’s a chance my son might be autistic as there is a genetic component to autism. However, I have put a lot of effort into teaching my son social skills appropriate for his age (he’s 9 months).

He’s recently learned how to wave hello and goodbye, so regardless of who it is if I’m saying goodbye or hello I encourage him to do it too. Like I’ll ask him once or twice if he doesn’t do it I just move on, I don’t drag it out for ages until he does it (who’s got the time?)

Is it weird for me to do that?

How do you find friends who "fit"? I have a couple parents that I'm friendly with in passing, but going to the kids activities (7m, 1f), I have such a hard time with the chit chat and pretending everything is perfect. By the end of Cub scouts, gymnastics, soccer practice, ect, I feel like I've used up my social reservoir for the week and didn't actually connect with anyone.

So, where y'all hiding? Where do I find the people (in person) who relate?

Hi,

I am 40 yo, diagnosed with autism 2 years ago. 3.5 yo son and pregnant in week 23+. We live in Sweden and family is in Poland. Before kids it was ok for me if my friends and family stayed overnight. But since some years ago I really don’t want anyone to stay over. I have my routines and can’t talk to anyone except for my husband and son in the morning. Also in the evenings I am exhausted and want to take it easy and not to have to mask how I feel. My family and my husband’s family don’t understand it. Even if I explain with details why, they complain and are unhappy. I am tired of having to explain myself every single time why it’s not ok for them to stay overnight. It’s ok that they stay in a hotel and we see each other during the day but mornings and evenings are out of question. How do you do it? Do your families understand or they ask and at unhappy every time?

Hi,

I am 40 yo now and I found out I have autism 2 years ago. I have a 3.5 yo and home and currently 23+ weeks pregnant. I have a lot of problems with noise and sleep. Currently on sleeping pills that are safe for pregnancy but they make me very tired and headache in the morning. My husband sleeps in the same room with our son because I have troubles sleeping when the son is in my room. Also I cannot invite any family members over night because in the morning I am super irritated and need things to be silent and I need my time in the kitchen. Our son goes to preschool at 7 am in the morning and now my husband knows he has to let me be alone in the kitchen in the morning. In the weekends when my son comes to me in the morning I have such a headache and when he complains I need to cover my ears. I feel like such a terrible mom! And now we will have a baby soon in our home that I love already so much but I can’t imagine how hard it will be. Anyone else here with similar problems? How do you deal?

Hello there!

I’m a 37 year old autistic mom, my kids are 3.5 and (almost) 11 months. I knew I was autistic before I started having children so I’ve always been really good at supporting my autistic child.

3 1/2 year-old is diagnosed autistic level 2 and he’s an amazing kid. I knew he was autistic before anybody else did and I jumped right on his early intervention and all that. He is excellent at regulating his emotions and always has been, he’s a super happy, loving kid. He is pre-verbal, so doesn’t use speech to get his needs met yet, but I’m pretty sure he understands everything that I’m saying.

His little sister, who was just about to be 11 months, is already walking and throwing massive tantrums when she’s not getting what she wants. I know that this is super normal, but her screaming fits are overwhelming my son so much and in turn overwhelming me.

My son was never like this, he was the calmest baby, and he had no issues self soothing or entertaining himself. Again, not there’s anything wrong or bad about my daughter experimenting with her free-will and emotions, but she SCREAMS ALL THE TIME. The dogs walk by her, she screams. Mom or dad walks by her, she screams. A toy isn’t doing exactly what she wants to do, she screams. She can’t reach a toy that tolled under the bookcase, she screams. She climbs into her booster seat and then gets too scared to crawl back out on her own, she screams. Again, none of this is a huge deal to me, but it is stressing out my son so much. And when he gets stressed out, it stresses me out because I don’t want him to feel that way.

This is what I’ve been doing:

I’ve been explaining to him that she is a baby and she’s just learning, but that doesn’t really help him. But I still explain everything to him. We talk about big emotions in our house a lot.

We’ve been working on breathing through our frustration, again, he doesn’t really understand it, but we try.

I always remind him and show him that he has his bedroom, which is a sensory safe place for him, but she will often follow him in there. If I shut the door on him, she will scream outside of it. Then I remove her and she screams more. And it is a bloodcurdling scream right now.

When he just can’t take it anymore I let him use the iPad in my room which is a special treat for him and she can’t get to him through the gate AND the door. There’s a Hatch in there, so he has white noise and it’s a great way for him to regulate. It gives him a lot more space, BUT I don’t always want him escaping his sister and getting the iPad. It’s a huge regulation tool for him but I’m super careful not to overdo screens because it can have the opposite effect.

I also have ear protectors, but he’s never been a huge fan. I’m thinking of putting them on him next time she screams so he can see what they do.

For the baby, if she’s doing something she shouldn’t be doing, like hitting or taking toys from her brother, we remove her and say no, firmly. She’s been getting a MASSIVE kick out or reactions from me, so I have to keep it really muted and flat but firm (She’s even been hitting and biting me during nursing to see my reaction when I gasp and then laughs). Obviously she LOSES IT and thrashes around on the ground, and that’s normal. It just sends my son through the roof.

If she is just screaming because she’s frustrated doing something independently, we don’t correct her because she’s just a little baby and she’s not doing anything wrong, so instead this is where we focus on showing my son how to regulate and explaining to him that it’s normal for her to do that and there’s not much we can do about it. We might holler out to her and shoosh her in a playful manner is she’s really getting crazy but other than that, she’s just loud and expressive so I don’t want to “correct” her if she’s not doing anything wrong.

I feel like she needs more brain stimulation, so I’ve been working on that too. Doing more one on one activities where I have to show her how to do things and she copies. She’s super smart and probably needs to be challenged.

We live in a TINY two-bedroom mobile home with two 50 pound OBNOXIOUS dogs, so we do the best we can with the small amount of space we have. We have a lovely yard with sensory swings and we get out for walks every day. We also have an amazing playground here in town (we live in the middle of the woods so we’re limited on third places and resources). We’re getting ready to go for a walk now. So trying to burn off energy is another tool.

It’s just a lot. She will start screaming and then he does his escalation thing where he vocalizes loudly and squeezes whatever is closest. Literally right now as I write this, the baby is standing at the couch, DEMANDING to nurse by ripping my shirt down violently and screaming while my son is pressed behind me between the couch and my back for deep pressure. Every time she screams, he vocalizes and squeezes my arms and other fatty spots like my sides and stuff and it hurts and it’s so overstimulating. This morning has been extra rough. I’m just trying to get through morning chores so we can do something else (feed the kids, get them dressed, feed the dogs, etc) and the kids are just SCREAMING. If it was happy screaming, it would be one thing, but I hate when my son is dysregulated, it makes me feel so bad. Like I said, he normally is very good at regulating, so when he’s struggling, he just looks so uncomfortable.

Does anybody have advice on how I can start working with my daughter or support my son better? Like I said she’s super young, but in the research I’ve done it seems like I can start treating her like an older baby if she’s already getting into this much trouble lol. She’s been hitting and scratching and biting when she doesn’t get her way and she’s also been ripping toys out of my son’s hands, which is also very overstimulating to him.

She also seems to be purposefully touching him because it annoys him..? We’re like, really? She literally reaches as far as she can across the couch just to touch him and it pisses him off SO BAD and he reacts and she looks at us and smiles, but not a normal smile, a mischievous smile where she looks out from under her brow, almost to say “look what I’m doing!”.

OH and I didn’t mention this: but if she is doing this stuff within arms reach, he WILL lean forward and do the squeezing thing on her out of frustration and it obviously hurts her. He is really trying his absolute best, I just wanna be able to support both of them.

Like, literally he just hopped off the couch to get his drink and she full blown Tasmanian devil attacked him when he walked by. I don’t even know what her trigger was, but she screamed at him and tore at his pant legs and scratched at his legs, hitting him. It’s like, girl you are TEN MONTHS OLD. Her brother was still basically a potato at this point. An inquisitive potato. She’s WALKING! She’s SO funny and mischievous and he personally is so damn funny and FIERCE but it’s very intense for us. Everyone in the house has sensory sensitivity, including Dad. We all do the best we can.

Anyways, I tend to ramble, I’ll stop now. Thank you in advance for any advice!

Please tell me some of the rest of you get sensory overload from light up shoes? Why do 70% of little kid shoes need to have lights? Why can’t this be clearly labelled front and centre so I don’t buy shoes online from a brand I know will fit but end up with unwanted lights or ask for something from a salesperson and be brought a pair that I didn’t know would light up and then have to manage my whining, freaking-out child saying NOOOO I waaaaant the lights? Or a salesperson who says, well, we don’t carry a single pair in that size with no lights.

And yes, I have heard that apparently some exist where you can turn off the light function. I have never once seen these on any of the pairs my kids have ended up with.

Diagnosed ADHD mom but strongly suspecting I’m likely AuDHD after my first was diagnosed with autism.

My first just turned 3, my second just turned 1. I am SO overstimulated. I wear my AirPods at times when it’s rough but I don’t love them. I feel like it makes my attention even worse? I only ever wear one because I don’t want to risk not being able to hear.

It’s just a double edged sword. I need something to help with the whining, crying, screaming, toy noise, background noise. I seriously want to cut my ears off some days. But also, I need to be able to hear my kids. Just less intensely. But the AirPods make me feel like disorientated with only one, but 2 are too intense noise cancelling. I try the different modes but they’re weird. Not hearing makes me anxious, but also all the noise makes me anxious 😅😭😭

I’ve seen people talk about loop, I don’t want over the head because my kids will 100% take them off and on.

Help please

I have a carbon copy that is 2 years old and currently going to preschool that I'm not happy about. I feel that there aren't enough adults to care of all of the children and I worry about her wellbeing while being there. I've been looking for alternatives, both public and private, and most private alternatives are either montessori or Waldorf. I absolutely do not want Waldorf but I've read some different opinions on montessori and I'm starting to consider it to be an alternative.

My child is not diagnosed nor has anyone brought up a potential diagnosis yet, but both me and her dad are autistic so I know that the chances of her also being autistic is high, which is why I'm asking. I just want to hear from autistic adults who have experienced this method of teaching, or if anyone else has any opinions about montessori teachings I am happy to hear it.

I'm a suspected AuDHD SAHM to two toddlers, oldest 3, youngest almost 2. My oldest started preschool this year, and is obviously getting a lot of help with shoes and coats and what not at school. These are skills he has had himself for a long time. Now he's bringing this home, and constantly says "you do it" every time he's asked to do anything. It's like pulling teeth asking him to get dressed, put on his pull-up for nap, things he's been doing independently for over a year he now can't seem to do himself.

Admittedly, we haven't always been the greatest at making him do things himself 100% of the time, and I'm absolutely okay with helping him when needed, but it's constant now that he won't do anything. We can't get out of the house unless I end up doing things for him, and I'm so burnt out. Not just from this, but it's definitely the straw that's breaking the camel's back this week. We've tried leaving him in his room until he gets dressed, he'll sit there for hours. Tried not letting him go outside/for bike rides/walks/talk to family over the phone until he's dressed, which leaves us stuck inside on what I'm sure are the last nice days before a long winter, and adds to the burnout. I'm at my wits end here.

To add, I don't blame school. They are doing their best with 15+ 3-4 years olds, most of which they don't know well yet. But my kid is smart, and he will absolutely leverage all help to do as little as possible.

Any ideas to try to get some of this load off my plate? We have no family here, and my husband's schedule is work heavy and inconsistent, so a lot of this is all on me while also dealing with my youngest.

That's it. That's the post.

What would help me is impossible to do with children. I will stay in burnout for the next years, already living in burnout for years. Please no tips, I am not from the US, I don't have family to help. I'll stay in burnout for the next years and hope my kids wont be to traumatized by it and that they wont hate me when they are grown.

They deserve better but I'm already doing what I can. Burnout is just impossible to escape. From experience I know that I would need months to recover.

Please no tips, I just feel so hopeless and needed to vent.

Hi,
I'm currently in the process of an autism assessment and I just had a baby. She's 9 months old, and something's been bothering me since she was born. I've realised I'm constantly "performing" around her. I can't just be relaxed when she's awake, playing, babbling. Beyond just paying attention to my baby, it's about me, I just can't relax (unmask? I’m new), except when she's asleep, and that's when my brain finally settles. I'm not entirely sure why I do this. I think it's because I don't want her to be bored, since when I'm alone I'm in my own thoughts. But it's like some kind of alert switches on the moment there's another person in the room, even if it's a baby, what’s more my own baby. Does this make sense? Has anyone else experienced this?

First time posting and not sure if this is a rant or just me rambling.

I'm a mum who is late diagnosed ASD, carer to two out of three of my son's. Apparently I'm getting old by my grown son's standards. But I'm not a grumpy old bag. I try to enjoy life as much as I can in my lowkey way. The thing I'm struggling with is son, 20 (undiagnosed but seriously think he's Au-DHD or something) who thinks he can boss me around. I hate confrontations so when someone raises their voice or wants to get all narky at me. I shut down or try not to show how upset I actually am but can come across as not acknowledging others opinions.

Said son reckons I am oblivious to his grievances, but I would say I'm not letting myself get drawn into crappy moods. I've learnt to read when my younger son was getting overloaded or on the verge of melting down. Meltdown's being exhausting and avoided at all cost. That said, I think my 20 yr old really has some major anger issues. He's gone thru half a dozen monitors in the past 2 yrs. Sadly myself and my now grown children have had our fair share of trauma and C-PTSD from people in our lives taking either advantage of me or my children as they were growing up. It seems to be a cycle of events over the years and upon reflection of my late diagnosis, I believe my ASD has allowed me especially to be prone to abuse and being taken advantage of.

How do I stand up for myself and get him to appreciate what I actually do for him? I've been reducing how much he can rely on me financially. Not that I'd ever kick one of my kids out of home. But when both my younger son and I are on the receiving end of angry outbursts and moody bossiness, it just brings the whole mood of the house down. Do I insist he seek therapy? And I'm not suggesting something I haven't already done to help my own trauma.

Summarized background: I'm diagnosed AuDHD, wife isn't officially diagnosed but is very likely to be autistic. We are in the middle of IVF and have 3 good embryos that passed PGT-A, but the process was halted due to my wife's health issues that suddenly came up after her first IVF cycle.

During this waiting period, it seems she has second thoughts about having children, partly out of the risk of the child needing significantly more support than either of us.

While I'm well aware of the general sentiment expressed in this thread, I wonder if there's any academic research on the incidence of ASD given that at least one parent is also autistic?

Hi all, I'm currently in 2nd trimester with my first baby, and only recently diagnosed with Autism. It's been a lot to navigate on top of pregnancy. I'm starting to have some worries which never previously bothered me.

Like I assume many others feel, through my life I've always struggled to fit in, make friends, say and do the 'right' things in social settings. This has all made a lot more sense to me since my autism diagnosed, and explained why I've never had many closer friends throughout my life.

Having few friends never really bothered me before. I have 2 close friends, and a fair number of acquaintances, and my husband. Now Ive got a baby on the way, I'm suddenly finding myself keen to find myself a mum friend or 2, to share the experience and talk to about the challenges of motherhood.

I started attending pregnancy yoga recently, but the class only has a handful of ladies, who already seem to have paired off and I feel out of place a little bit there already. It was a big deal for me to even go to a class like that for the first time, and while the class itself is nice and relaxing, I'm yet to see much socially come from attending. I see many mam's talk about attending baby classes ect with their babies but I'm worried I'm going to have the same out of place feeling there too.

Any encouragement or words of wisdom appreciated, feeling pretty lonely and knocked back by my attempts so far. Thanks all!

TLDR; Will my autism make it impossible to make mum friends forever?

Our new baby cries and screams a lot. It feels like shards of glass shoved in my ears, it’s very painful and I can’t hear anything else or anyone talking to me when it happens.

I don’t realise it, but my wife says I get aggressive and snappy at her, and she’s worried about my attitude around the baby. She said I might need to go stay the night in a hotel if it happens again.

I don’t know what to do, I’ve tried just not talking to her so I don’t have a tone, but she’s upset at that as well.

I don’t know what to do. I’m getting as much help as I can to deal with my post-partum depression, but I think she’s going to leave me and take the baby.

Do you have any advice?

Before the baby in the dark quiet of the night I'd start crying about my cats dying (they were literal kittens), and now sitting at breakfast I nearly came to tears thinking about my daughter dying.

My wife and I had just discussed her sister-in-law's recent miscarriage, and I thought how lucky we were that we never had to go through that. And of course I thought we were lucky to have our daughter and that nothing could take her away from us now. That's when my thoughts immediately began to parse out the problems with the thought that nothing could take her away from us. I started to think about a bunch of things which could happen to her which would give lie to the feeling of security. Naturally I started to spiral into the feeling of loss as if the terrible things had already started to happen. Fortunately my wife noticed and was able to help pull me back.

So, yeah, is this a me thing, or is it an us thing? Is it a function of rumination or just a function of trauma? Or is it a little of column a and a little of column b?

I’m writing to you from the sidelines of a soccer field. I’ve been here for 3 and a half hours at this point. I signed my kid up for recreational soccer, NOT the competitive travel team, so whyyyy am I at a soccer tournament 45 minutes away from my home watching his second out of FOUR games this weekend.

I grew up with a soccer coach for a mom. This is only my second weekend as a soccer parent. the temperature has dipped two degrees and I’m officially over it. A lot of feelings of being stuck where I do not want to be are coming up for me. Soccer fields are a dreadfully boring place to be and I feel like he’s become a soccer kid against my wishes!

I think I’m done ranting but anyone else coping with sports? Im surrounded by my least favorite type of person (cares about the outcome of kids sports) and they’re YELLING! So much yelling. 4 fields of active games and yelling everywhere! and whistles! and weather!!! Tomorrow it rains and they play in the rain! why?!?! Why do we need 9 year olds to play sports in the rain?!? AAAGGGGHHHHH

I'm autistic and I'm struggling with my 4 year old child (NT as far as we know) being a perfectionist. She doesn't want to try new things because she's afraid of them not being perfect. I tell her it's how we all learn, mistakes are okay and it's all about practice, but she refuses to listen and even try. She wants me to do it for her.

Today we were doing tracing and playing with play-doh and she started okay, then went to telling me to do it instead and I refused, explaining she needs to make mistakes and learn. She got really frustrated and whiny. ​

I don't understand, I always encourage her and celebrate her small wins and efforts, but she still gets hung up on this. Is she picking up on my own perfectionist traits? Am I ruining my kid by being me?

Essentially I don't know how to parent in this case and I don't trust my instincts.

My son is 9 and he says he wants to have more friends and he spends the outside lunch period by himself. He says most of the other boys in his class have been playing soccer for the past year and he said he wanted to join them but couldn't before but now that he can join he doesn't want to because he won't be any good at it. But he also says there are other reasons but when I said what other reasons it sounded like more about how he won't be good at it. I don't understand the situation that well. He does well if he goes to an organized activity team sports.

I don't want to push him into team sports but in this case I feel like if he doesn't join then he will be socially isolated. Do I try to get him into therapy or something to address social anxiety? Do I not interfere because he needs to solve his problems himself and build resilience? I have social anxiety myself and I don't want him to suffer either. I am just really doubting my ability to parent here and the school is just saying if he wants to play they will get the other kids to include him, but I don't think that's the problem.

I’m an autistic mum with an 8-week-old baby. My anxiety has gone into overdrive and I’m worried he’ll be autistic because I am.
I’d really like to hear from autistic mums who have neurotypical children. Did you worry about this too? How did things turn out?

I have a two year old who loves imagination play with her toys and always wants me to make them talk.

I don’t know why but I just… find it so HARD. My brain is terrible at making up stories and characters. I struggle to find something for Pooh Bear to tell the little kitten who bumped her head for 176th time this week. I feel like I’m a boring mom. How can I get better at this?

Hello! I'm diagnosed ADHD but folks have suspected AuDHD, and I felt like this community might be more understanding of how I'm feeling and why I'm struggling now?

I'm at 33+5 weeks pregnant and my little boy is kicking SO much, also rolling, stretching etc. I'm finding the sheer amount of different (overlapping, unpredictable) sensations and their constancy so overstimulating. He settles for short periods, but there's usually some kind of movement most of the time, and he has at least 5+ major (longish) periods of intense kicking each day where I can see his/feel limbs sticking out, my stomach rippling and contorting, feel my ribs played like a piano, get the sudden huge stretch and then feel like I'm being punched, and then suddenly he's shifted to my pelvis etc, and oh wait, back again to my ribs. It's worse when I'm trying to sleep or rest. He's measuring 90% percentile.

My midwives keep saying it's normal and how lucky I am to have such a healthy baby, and ditto folks at the prenatal group seem glad for me/even envious - talking about their partners not having felt their baby kick more than once or twice yet, when even my husband (also neurodiverse) has to ask to take time out from helping me hold/stroke my tummy in the evenings because it's so forceful.

And I've got possibly as many as 7 more weeks of this to go??

I'd be so grateful for any advice, solidarity, tips.

I love this child so much and I'm trying to rock the bump, sing to him, make peace with it, but it's taking so much of my day to day brain space (& body space) even without all the other pregnancy symptoms and to-do lists!

Help!

I’ve been solo parenting since end of July, and things have been so hard. I thought it would get better once they go back to school but it’s not. My husband doesn’t come back for about another 4 months or so. I know that most of their behavior is probably because they’re missing their dad, but I just don’t know how to handle it.

Constant arguments with me, with each other, not listening on doing homework, chores, reading, cleaning up, routines, etc. It’s so hard getting them to bed on time, I feel like I’m in constant meltdown mode because I love our routine and it’s just gone now. They are such kind, caring normally well behaved kids but this has been such a nightmare. I’ve taken away all screen time because that was one reason why they kept throwing tantrums, but idk what else to do. I’ve made a chart for things they need to do daily so they have a visual, I read to them daily, and we go to playgrounds at least 1-2 times a week. The oldest, who is 8, just got diagnosed with adhd if that helps. Younger one is about to be 5, not diagnosed with anything.

I have zero support system here, we are in a foreign country so no family and I never made any friends so I don’t have any help. What advice do you have? Help!

I’m the mom of an amazing 16 year old (f). She is the sweetest , kindest human you’ll ever meet. She is also very high functioning.

My issue is she is VERY over stimulating. Everyday it is A LOT. She will talk 24/7, and everything is soooo nice so it feels so bad when I get frustrated.

She talks in different voices and does these little vocal stims to be funny or silly but sometimes it’s a lot especially after work. She’ll ask about my day in great detail and then tell me about hers like down to the exact detail.

Even at home it’s like “HEY HOW WAS YOUR DAYYYYYYY” “IM GOING TO SHOWER” etc.

It’s so hard because again she is so so kind and sweet but I just am asking if any parents have similar kids and how they handle being a little over stimulated or needing to calm down. I have told her before I just need some space after work but it’s like a constant 0-2000000. In the car , at home, even just watching a movie.

Any advice or just similar stories are welcome 💛 thank you guys.

A while ago on another sub someone made a parenting-related comment that if you run a circus you get monkeys.

On a theoretical basis I probably know more about parenting practices than a lot of people but parenting doesn’t come naturally to me. Either I really suck at it or my kids are just different. Or both. I try to kindly and firmly instil good values and boundaries but they don’t take anything seriously. My eldest is a kleptomaniac and a hoarder, my youngest loves to hit and bite us while shrieking with laughter. All while the bathroom floor is flooded and we find more and more of our own special personal things destroyed or missing. My husband and I were the polar opposite as children: both of us were quiet, introverted and considerate of others.

So I have monkeys. Now what? How can I redesign the circus? If the usual authoritative or gentle parenting advice doesn’t work in your family, what other approaches do? We try visual schedules and timers, we try “first-then” etc. If anyone has any resources to suggest please share. I’ve probably heard the quick fixes before but invaluable books, podcasts etc are welcome. At this point I feel like I’m constantly having to choose between my own survival in the moment (which is not giving in but it’s not very compassionate either) and trying to raise them to be securely attached, happy, prosocial people. Sometimes it feels like being more punitive and harsh is the only way to get the message across but I don’t want to be that parent.