What are your child’s comfort items? I love asking this question in online autism support groups, because the answers are sometimes very weird and wonderful! There are things that make sense, and a few that are pretty unusual – like pieces of fruit, stacks of coloured paper, or kitchen utensils! Aidan’s are not too odd, and he only had two: His bottles and pillows. Most recently, he’s been getting comfort from gathering up my hair and rubbing it against his face and neck. But his bottles were his great love, until we weaned him off them this year, at three years old. And now pillows are his go-to for self soothing.
When Aidan and I began co-sleeping on the main bed together, I was completely paranoid about him rolling off the side of it. I ordered a bed guardrail off of Amazon as ones available locally couldn’t fit our king-size, extra length frame. I boxed him in with about 20 pillows while we waited for it to arrive and he absolutely loved it! He would snuggle, and burrow, and knead them for hours! He eventually found the tag on the inside of the pillowcases and would rub them between his fingers while he fell asleep on his bottle at night. Now that the bottles are gone, he still goes looking for the tags, so I make sure to have some good ones available to him each night, within arms reach. He’s quite choosy about his tags, and I have sometimes offered him a pillow with a tag I thought was fine, only for him to reject it and begin unpacking the whole bed, looking for another! And he will expend quite a bit of energy in his pursuit of a satisfactory tag… which is not what you want when you’re trying to initiate sleep in a no-sleep warrior!
When the bed guardrail arrived from overseas, I was alarmed to see how flimsy it was. It was only held in place by two spokes which fit between the mattress and bed base! It moved quite a bit, and could be kicked out of place with relative ease. I secured the one side of it to the headboard with hammer and nail, but it still wasn’t very solid. So I packed pillows in front of it, to prevent my cub from rolling into it in the night and possibly getting hurt. After its installation, the configuration of pillows remained the same. Aidan seemed to draw a lot of security from this, and would reach for pillows he knew were there, with his eyes closed. He continued to use them to soothe himself to sleep, especially after overnight wakings, and I would usually find him cuddled into a whole pile of pillows in the morning!
Aidan’s association with pillows and comfort is so strong, that if we do a long drive somewhere, a pillow in the back seat with him is enough to give him the security he needs to sit in place for a few hours. We also make sure to take one to the hospital with us if ever he has an admission or procedure. I suspect this love affair with pillows and their tags will be ongoing for some time. And I think it’ll be really sad for me to watch him outgrow them one day! Until then, it’ll be snuggles, and pillows, and burrowing, to his heart’s content.
