Sprinkles!
Now that our kids are grown, we keep plain Greek yogurt in the house, but back then, vanilla yogurt was a staple. We always had it around for a snack packed with protein.
This may seem like a mean mom thing to do…yogurt isn’t really dessert, right? Well, it isn’t quite as mean as it may seem.
Because Mikey can’t always tell me what is going on with him, whenever there is a problem, I run through the same list parents use when they bring their newborns home from the hospital. Could he be hungry? Could he be tired? Could he need the bathroom?
One of my theories on why Mikey might be waking in the night was that he was hungry.
So
Part of my effort to get Mikey to sleep through the night was to give him an after-dinner snack that had some protein in it to hold him over until breakfast. It is true that I tried to get my kids to eat healthy foods, but often I failed in this regard. Sprinkles made Mikey feel like it was a treat. Yogurt made me feel like he had enough protein to sleep through the night. Yogurt with sprinkles was a compromise we could both accept.
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About the Author
Erica Mauro is a mom to two teenage boys, Will who is neurotypical and Michael with Autism and cognitive delays. She holds a BA in Psychology from Colgate University and a Masters of Psychology in Education from Columbia Teacher’s College. Before staying home with her children, she worked as an elementary school teacher. For five years, she served on the Board of Directors of the Molly Ann Tango Memorial Foundation, a charity dedicated to enriching the lives of children with special needs. In partnership with her husband Dave, she aspires to parent by using daily life as an opportunity for therapeutic intervention, seizing on real experiences as opportunities to build skills and strategies for Michael in a joyful, loving home environment. On the tougher early days, she just tried to get everyone safely to bedtime and start fresh in the morning. *wink* 
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