Rayne’s journey has been a beautiful but rough one at times. As hard as things are for us sometimes, it’s equally if not harder for her. She struggles to communicate with those around her, can’t always communicate her wants, and her brain gets overloaded at times. So, we’ve had quite the journey of researching and finding different products as certain concerns rise. Sometimes these searches take extra time just because we aren’t sure of the verbiage to put into Google.
Luckily, after years of working together, we’ve found products that address our biggest concerns. With how long it took me to find some of these lifesaving products, I knew I needed to get them into one place to help other parents!
Below you will find a list of my top four product choices in no particular order. These are products that truly brought relief to all of us when we found them.
Product 1: ChuBuddy
Rayne has always been a biter, whether she’s biting herself, others, or furniture. She goes through phases, sometimes we go without biting for months and then all of the sudden she’s chewing on everything and everyone. Rayne is a tiny girl and easy enough to stop but doesn’t seem to learn to stop. We had to find a way to redirect her so she and my furniture can get a break!
With the help of the school, we found these amazing products call Chubuddys! They offer a variety of amazing products designed to help children who have special needs. Chubuddys are extremely durable, tested by professionals, and safe to use!
Rayne’s first Chubuddys were the Strong Tubes. When Rayne starts to bite it is typically because she is frustrated and her senses are overloading. She trying to find a way to get it out. Thanks to her Chubuddy that clips onto to her shirt, we can quickly redirect the biting to the tube.
They have a wide variety of amazing products, including a hoodie with built-in chew tubes! I would recommend these to any parent with a biting child. They have different textures and strengths to meet the need of your kiddo.
Please check out their amazing products here:
Product 2: Little Keeper Sleeper
If you’ve read my first blog post, you’ll know that we struggled with a very awful issue that wasn’t hard on Rayne but sure took a toll on me. No one prepared me for fecal smearing, or as our family named it, “Poop-caso”. At bedtime Rayne would smear feces all over her walls & toys, leading to a second bath while I’m cleaning feces off the walls and crying. It was truly the hardest thing I’ve dealt with personally raising Rayne.
She wouldn’t leave her PJs on, she wiggled out of her footie pajamas when we put them on backwards, and we were at a loss for what to do. It continued to get worse as she is a sensory seeker. The house stunk, toys were thrown away, and my mental health tanked at its worst. I dreaded bedtimes and the only thing I could do was try to watch her on the camera and hope to catch her before she started.
Finally, I managed to type in the right words on Google and we found Little Sleeper Keeper pajamas. The relief of finding these amazing pajamas is unexplainable, these truly changed nighttimes for our family.
We call them her ‘jail jammies’ because I was feeling a little beat down when I purchased them. I picked out black & white stripes that resemble a jail jumpsuit. It was my little joke to make myself giggle after a year of scrubbing walls.
Her jammies are SUPER comfortable, soft fabric, amazing quality, and inescapable. You can choose footies or no footies, long or short sleeves, and short or long pants. They zip up the back and have three different snaps making it impossible for your little Houdini to escape!
Check out the variety of PJs at:
Product 3: GYMAX 6FT Kids Trampoline
Before going into this further I want to disclose that I am using this product in a way it was not intended. I am not guaranteeing the safety or success of using this product the way I describe below.
Again, bedtimes have been an awful time for the last few years. Trying to get her to calm down, even with her medications, has been tough. In both homes she is on the top level and bounces around or jumps from her windowsill, keeping everyone up. She is a monkey that can’t be calmed at night. Then it starts to become a safety concern.
We started looking into safety beds and very quickly stopped looking. They are, on average, $5,000 and we’d have to buy two! The research didn’t help us come up with anything but thank God for TikTok. We came across a mom who turned a GYMAX trampoline in a safety bed for her child. For her birthday we did a fundraiser for those who wanted to give gifts and we got the money together to buy two of them.
We knew we were going to have to find a way to cover the top because as previously stated, Rayne is a monkey who would climb right out of it. The day we started putting it together we decided we weren’t going to put a mattress in because Rayne HATES sleeping on beds. She prefers the floor over anything. With that, we realized we had some freedom with how we were going to put this trampoline together. First, we were going to skip the legs and just use the cage part of it.
We zip-tied the netting around the bottom since we were skipping the springs & legs. Not using the springs was also a great safety improvement, as we did not need to worry about Rayne getting pinched or trapped by them. Finally, we used the part of the trampoline they jump on as a cover for the top! (So thankful I have such a crafty husband.) Again, using zip-ties to secure the trampoline floor onto the roof of the structure.
What this means is that Rayne sleeps directly on the floor (which she prefers) but is completely closed in otherwise. We used two zip-ties, one on the netting, one on the zipper, and a carabiner to be able to prevent her from opening the zipper.
The first two nights she put up some resistance to the new sleeping arrangement. She whined and fussed even though she had been willingly spending time in her new bed earlier in the evenings. She doesn’t want to be enclosed in anything unless it was her decision. Since those first two nights we have had limited issues of her fighting going to bed.
Now even though we didn’t have any issues with her wanting to go to bed, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t try to be an escape artist! When putting this together, I got stingy on the zip ties which led to her finding a space she could squeeze out of, and she did. When we found she was out of the bed we were so confused but thankfully we have a camera in her room and can play back the night’s events. It was quite comical to watch this little girl wiggle through the side of the structure and celebrate her freedom by jumping around her room. We added a few more zip-ties and haven’t had issues since.
Our next part is securing this to the floor because eventually, she’s going to realize and become strong enough to lift it up to crawl out. We will get there eventually, and when we do we have a plan.
Her little bed is full of stuffies and blankets, so she doesn’t lack comfort. We bought a 4-foot stuffed animal with her Christmas money that she uses as her pillow now. She runs to her bed now and doesn’t fuss. She used to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and proceed to run around her room, keeping herself awake. Now she sleeps through the night and if she does wake up quickly falls back to sleep. This made the biggest difference in her getting the amount of sleep she needs.
Keep in mind the woman I followed on TikTok who did this built the trampoline like normal, put cushions on, and bellow the trampoline to prevent bouncing. She did not create a topper as her child was ill and was not able to crawl out of the bed. However, you chose to build this, it’s a cheap alternative to a safety bed!
Here’s a link to the exact product we used:
Last but not least…
Product #4: SimpliSafe
In the summer of 2021, I had come down with an awful staph infection that I was fighting off. I was laying on the couch while Rayne was downstairs playing. I noticed how quiet it had gotten so I went to check on her and she was nowhere to be found. Lilly and I searched the entire house, every nook and cranny, and all her favorite hiding spots with no luck. I called Mike at work, absolutely hysterical, telling him she was gone and he told me to call 911.
I called 911 and instantly our neighborhood was consumed with officers driving around looking for my beautiful blonde baby girl. I couldn’t breathe. She doesn’t talk, she has no sense of fear, and would be easy prey to a predator.
Quickly the police department had 30 officers out looking, they had deployed ATVs into surrounding grassy areas. Mike, a local firefighter, was allowed to come home to help because his department was next to be sent.
I ran to a neighbor who had a pool and she said they are out there and knew she wasn’t, but all I could think about was pools. She jumps into deep pools because she always has a life jacket on, she doesn’t understand that’s what keeps her floating.
As I am walking back from the neighbor’s I see this completely naked baby climbing over our chain link fence to come back home. I screamed, ran to her, and fell to the ground. She was wet and at some point, ditched her diaper. She had gotten into a pool.
It wasn’t until months later, driveway drinking with neighbors, that we met a neighbor we hadn’t met before. She told me where she lived, and I asked if she had found a diaper in her pool a few months back. She said she had and was confused about where it had come from. We filled in the gaps and I realized that she had climbed into a 6-foot deep pool. We have no idea how she got out and didn’t drown. After that we went to a friend’s and found she was terrified of their backyard pool, we are pretty sure she almost didn’t come home that day. I will forever be grateful my baby made it.
So now, that leads me to SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe is a security system that I’m sure you are aware of. It’s easy to install, uses stickers instead of drilling holes into your doors, and is easy to use! My favorite feature is you can set it to chime when doors are opened and set certain windows or doors to send alerts to your phone if opened. All exterior doors chime when opened and notifications are sent if her window is opened. Then at night, the house is armed so we know she won’t get far before alarms sound.
We chose to use Nest cameras as the quality is a bit better. You can find those here:
Every child is different, but I feel confident these products can be used to help with the difficulties of raising a child with autism. I hope this finds the next mom or dad out there that is struggling to figure out how to keep their child safe or the walls free of poop!
Thank you for reading.
Much love,
M
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