“ Boys it’s time to go to bed!” I call out to them at 9 pm on the dot.
“Ok!” they respond
Then I see Zavier walking into my room and Asar is following him. “Where are you going? It’s time for bed.” Asar asks.
Zavier replies “ I need to talk to Mommy! I have problems sleeping and Mommy helps calm me down.”
Asar says “ It’s my job to calm you down. Come on.”
I’m sitting in my bed wondering when did it become his job to calm Zavier down. Then I start to wonder is this a tactic to keep Zavier out of my bed. LOL!
Zavier has anxiety and nightmares. I established a rule for the boys that they have to go to sleep in their beds and if they have nightmares then they can come in my room. Which works since at one time Zavier would wake up from a nightmare and turn the TV on. Then I had teachers letting me know he was falling asleep in class. It took me a week after that to figure out what he was doing. The rule works for him plus I took the remote a couple of times. Some people would ask why not take the remote every night? You have to build a relationship with your children based on honesty and trust. So I gave him a couple of chances with consequences and now it’s not a problem.
Then I start to hear these weird sounds coming from Zavier’s room and I’m thinking “ What are those sounds?” So I get up and walk to his room and he is knocked out and the sounds are coming from the TV. He uses the Spotify app to play music to sleep. On the screen, it states Gibi ASMR. I remember my daughter telling me she used ASMR to sleep over the summer. But these sounds are weird and my Sci-fi mind alert goes off like the robot in Lost in Space “ Danger Will Robinson, Danger!”
“What’s ASMR?”
Autonomous or Auto Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) describes a feeling of euphoric tingling and relaxation that can come over a person when he or she watches certain videos or hear certain sounds. Surprisingly its videos or sounds of people doing daily quiet and simple tasks such as folding clothes, brushing hair, and whispering of affirmations ( like you’re special). The sounds create tingling in the scalp which spreads throughout the body which leads to relaxation.
My Sci-fi alert has gone off with the knowledge of what all the whispering is about. I can honestly say the boys have never gone to sleep this quickly before. If you want to try it out you can find audio on Spotify and videos on Youtube. Let me know how ASMR worked out for you.
