Five Benefits to Using a Weighted Blanket

A couple of months ago I began to research weighted blankets being used with kids on the autism spectrum.  My son has always had an incredibly hard time falling asleep and staying asleep.  Sleep issues are a pretty common problem with children on the spectrum and I wanted to seek out alternatives to having him take melatonin.

While I was researching I discovered that weighted blankets were not only being used for kids on the spectrum but for typical kids, kids with ADHD, and kids who suffer from anxiety.  On top of that adults were benefiting from them too.

Mosaic Weighted Blankets was kind enough to gift my little guy with a weighted blanket of his own.  He has been trying it out for a couple of months now and we have seen nothing but positives.  He falls asleep faster, and stays asleep longer.  My husband and I have both borrowed his blanket to try it out ourselves and we were both shocked at how quickly even we were able to fall asleep using one…and I never fall asleep quickly!

Here are five of the benefits of using a weighted blanket that we have experienced:

1. For our son the weighted blanket acts as a deep touch pressure all over his body.  He has a hard time regulating his body when he has become over stimulated.  The deep touch pressure helps his body to be able to relax and calm down. It basically mimics a long, deep hug.
2. It has helped with restless leg syndrome.  As someone who has suffered from this since having my second child I can tell you that the relief I felt in my legs from just the couple of times I used one was amazing!
3. It has completely changed the quality and quantity of sleep.  What used to take over an hour to get little man to sleep has drastically dropped to less than twenty minutes, he has fewer episodes of waking in the night, and has had less 4am wake ups.
4. We have noticed a decrease in morning meltdowns after having a good nights sleep with the weighted blanket.
5. I have placed it on him during a period of sensory induced anxiety and it helped him to calm down within minutes.

I have nothing but good things to say about our use of a weighted blanket to this point.  While they are going to work differently for everyone the benefits for our family have been amazing.  My husband and I are now saving up to buy ourselves one! Have you ever used a weighted blanket? What are your thoughts?

You can find the child size blanket my son has been using here: Kids size weighted blanket.

Thanks for stopping by!