This Morning Ayub Had A Meltdown Because He Didn’t Have His Pillow Last Night

Ayub had a meltdown this morning. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him have a meltdown. But it happened. Poor dude.

Basically Ayub struggles with change

Ayub doesn’t like change. He’s definitely a creature of habit. He has his schedule and he’s very happy to stick to it. We’ve pretty much done the same thing every day for the past 5 years. If there are going to be changes, I always let him know ahead of time. And remind him. Over and over. So there are no surprises.

When he was little, he would refuse to wear new clothes, play with new toys, or try new food

Anything different was bad. Or scary. Just a big nope from Ayub. The first time he ever willingly bought something new was when he saw these Spiderman shoes by Reebok. That was a HUGE day for us.

Last night our house was full

My mom and Mr Ninja’s parents were staying over. So there was a bedroom shuffle. My in-laws took my mom’s room, my mom took Ayub’s room, and Ayub shared Sulaiman’s room. That’s a lot of change.

Everything was fine. I had to go to the boys’ room in the middle of the night because they were talking and laughing and not sleeping.

Then this morning Ayub was upset. So upset. Upset that he didn’t have his pillow last night.

My mom brushed it off. I brushed it off. Ayub did not brush it off.

He kept going on and on about his pillow.

I told him to get ready for school and left the room.

A few minutes later Ayub was sobbing and hyperventilating in my mother’s arms

He couldn’t control his breathing. He couldn’t stop crying. All because of a pillow. It took him over an hour before he could properly compose himself. It’s like he lost control of his body. Could barely move it.

My mom cried. She hadn’t seen him have a meltdown since he was a toddler. And it looks very different now compared to when he was little. At least he has more self-awareness to know that his reaction is “too big” for the problem, just that he’s unable to make his reaction smaller. If that makes sense?

So what’s the big deal about a pillow?

It probably wouldn’t make sense to other people, but the pillow is a big deal.

• Sensory needs: Ayub has slept with the same two pillows since he was 2 years old. That’s 8 years of sleeping with the two same pillows every night. He knows how they feel, he knows how they smell.
• Difficulties dealing with change: One small change can throw off a whole day. This was a big change. Different room, different bed, different pillows.
• It’s also Ramadan and he’s fasting: We didn’t do so well last year, so this year Ayub is committed to trying to fast. He’s been doing great. Three out of five days so far. Fasting is tiring. And… major change in sleeping and eating schedule.

Hmm… I’m too lazy to get into the rest haha. Ayub stayed home from school and is feeling much better now.

Change is inevitable and hopefully Ayub will slowly be able to adjust with unexpected surprises in the future. But we’ll never take his pillows away again.