Autism Safe Room

Getting Creative in My Home

by Theresa Yeager

I love that we have moved into a bigger space and have room to get creative with sensory toys at home. Everyone loves this swing! 🙂

It was super easy to do and cost very little. I know – a sensory item that doesn’t break the bank. That’s a shocker for sure! But here’s the thing, you really don’t need to purchase prepackaged, high priced sensory toys from a specialized company. The one time I did – the product didn’t last but a few months anyway. So I gave up. Oh I will continue to check things out. But really those companies don’t make things that can withstand the rigorous needs of my Boy without sending the price through the roof. Thankfully Hubby is handy.

How we made our swing

I wanted a round swing so that I didn’t need to worry about corners and my walls. Just my preference. Hubby cut a circle out of 3/4″ plywood in the diameter that we felt was big enough for the Boy to play on and lay on, but small enough to fit in our space without smashing into the walls.
We drilled 4 holes in the plywood for heavy duty rope to be thread through to hang the plywood platform.
Hardware we chose
Get yourself heavy duty hardware for the ceiling attachment and make sure you find a joist to attach everything to! This is not a place to cut corners. We found what we needed for under $50 on Amazon and our local hardware store that caters to the farming community. You would rather the load it can handle be too high than too low. We chose hardware that allowed for the swing to spin as well as swing.
Cover the platform with carpet or heavy duty material. Cut holes in your covering to match the holes in the plywood. We singed the edges of our material so they would not fray.
Thread your rope through your holes in the swing and attach it to the hardware in your ceiling making sure it is high enough not to scrape on the ground while swinging but not so high that it’s difficult to get on and off! The goal is for your child to use it independently so that he can self-regulate.

Done!

Who would have thought it could be that simple? I sure didn’t, but we are certainly loving the results ♥

A glitch with our Autism Safe Room

by Theresa Yeager

Ugh!! So you think you have it all covered. You look over every aspect and troubleshoot every detail you can think of and then BAM, something smacks you in the face that you didn’t see coming. Yup – that was me. And can I tell you that it just SUCKS when you miss something so crazy obvious? You want to beat yourself up over it. But you can’t. Just get over it am move on. We are human after all. I know, easier said then done.

But it has to be done.

So what happened you ask? We are finishing the walls in the Safe Room. I was so excited about the Green Glue a friend told me about to partially soundproof the room so the Boy could have a place where the sensory stimulus would be lessened dramatically.

Walls around the Boy's bed — Walls around the Boy’s bed

We are halfway done and realized that the odor is INSENSE. The Boy’s room is small. Just large enough to have a window seat, closet, bed and sensory swing. So when he went in there and closed the door – WOW is all I can say. And it is all of 20 degrees so opening a window to get some fresh air in there is tricky. I did it – but BOY was it cold!!

So, although I am still very excited about getting the other 1/2 of the room done I will have to put my thinking cap on and figure this one out. The odor didn’t seem to give him a headache, but the first night he did come out in the middle of the night to sleep on a chair in the living room. I know it was bothersome, but I’m not sure how bothersome.

I’m thinking I’ll try Purification essential oil in my diffuser to see if it will help.

Wish me luck!!

envision — Want a place where he can quiet his mind <3

Progression on our Autism Safe Room

by Theresa Yeager

If you have been reading my blog, you will remember that we are redoing the boy’s room to be Autism Safe for him. Boy is it an intense task! We are doing it on a budget cause, ya know, most of us don’t have $10K to drop on a remodel for a room. I also wanted to do it ‘right’ for him. My boy has a specific set of sensory needs and I wanted to do this thing ONE time. I don’t want to have to redo his room again in another couple of years. I want this to grow with him as he gets older – and BIGGER! One of the things we are working on is soundproofing. Did you know that it is easy and affordable to soundproof a room. Now it’s not studio quality – but we aren’t recording in there. We are trying to make a place for him to retreat to when the outside world it too much <3

Another thing we did was put his bed on a platform, I don’t want to find ‘things’ shoved under his bed and I certainly don’t want to have to try and clean under there on a regular basis. Remember, the boy has issues with cleaning – My Mop is Evil.

Then I wanted to get him a sensory swing. I found one on Amazon that he just loves. So as the room is under construction – he will come running in the house without even bothering to take off boots and snow suit before jumping into (or swinging from) it.

We are working on a window seat for him as well as a special sensory closet! I can’t wait til we are further along in construction and I can share it with you.

Building an Autism Safe Room

by Theresa Yeager

What did we do Christmas Day this year? With Autism in the house it can get kinda tricky to appease everyone. Hubby and I came up with an ingenious plan to help the boy deal with the rest of this crazy family without putting himself or anyone else in danger. What did we come up with? We are making a ‘safe room’ for him.

Think you can’t afford to do that? I bet you can!

If you do need some extra income – ask me how you can work Young Living as a business. The compensation plan rocks and it has enabled our family to do SO much for the boy.

How did we cut costs to make this room for the boy? Well, we started with reclaimed wood to lay down as a floor. Wood flooring is so much safer than many other options. The plus is that it looks, and smells amazing! Gimme a break, I am an Aromatherapist after all 🙂 I was able to skip the Pine essential oil for the day cause I just breathed deep the aroma of the floor!

Autism safe wood flooring - FREE to us! — Autism safe wood flooring – FREE to us!

For Christmas the boy got a therapy swing and a chenille blanket that he just loves. Even without the rest of the room complete, he spent hours and hours in there. He was able to get the sensory input that he needed and he could be in a small room by himself without the rambunctious toddler, squealing girl or booming teen bothering him <3 It was an amazing day! I can’t wait until we get the rest of the room done – especially the DIY soundproofing!! It is going to be Au-some!! I’ll be sure to share all about it as we make this dream come true for our family.