Stimmy, Stimmy ...and how to get that kid asleep

So we are in a "Down-face" right now. The last 1 1/2 weeks where hard on the whole family. Nicky is very loud, stimmy and over all just very uncooperative. You see it on little things during the whole day that something is bothering him.
That starts in the morning when he has to get dressed: He doesn't put his hand through the sleeve itself, he kind of fights it. It's a struggle.
But the worse is his sleeping pattern right now. He wakes up screaming during the night, he want the light on or somebody sleeping next to him. He also has a hard time fall asleep.You think he should be exhausted by the end of the day, especially with all the stimming and loud noises he makes. But hell NO! He is up, loud. And even he falls asleep, he wakes up after two hours, sitting in his bed. and seems like he is is done with sleeping.
So the first thing you look into as parents of an autistic kid is, "What have you changed that pushed him over the edge?" . Supplements are always a good guess, but also food could be the reason. Another is (and that's actually something good) that he is dumping toxins like yeast or heavy metals. In this process called Herxheimer reaction the child is feeling worse for a few days before an improvement occurs.
Because he is on a couple new supplements for over three weeks already i don't think is a Herxheimer reaction, it might be that the supplements itself (Olive leaf extract, artichokes and other nat. herbs) make him stimmy and sleepless.
So i left it out for three days and we already saw an improvement in sleep in the first night. Last night was actually good, he didn't wake up once after midnight and woke up for his normal school day time at 6 o'clock.
I also changed a few things in his bedtime routine. We give him Trytophan, which has Magnesium in it, along with other ingredients. Magnesium given at night makes you all sleepy and your body relax.
I also give him some herbal tea, called the Lazy Tea by Janosch with verlian, Anis, fennel, peppermint, Lavender. Very soothing, and he loves it so much, he drinks a full pot full over the late afternoon and evening.
Another thing is giving a bath with verlian herbs. I just bought the herbs in the pharmacy (welcome to Germany, where you get all nat. stuff!) and make a big pot of tea out of it.Beautiful calming bath essence.
There is a big section about sleep in one of my all-time-favourite autism books "Autism, Effective Biomedical Treatments" by Jon Pangborn . He talks about all this things and more, one is for example, that your body can not produce Melatonin, a hormone, that makes you sleep, as long as the lights are on. WOW! Nicky loves the light on at night, but he also has trouble to sleep through. As soon as we removed that bedside-lamp his night was so much better.

I am sure that there is so much more out there and if you want to share it with me, i would love to learn about it.

Let hope for a calm weekend, it's supposed to be sunny here temp's in the upper 50's.
Have a great weekend!