wispfox | [AS.weighted blankets]

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neurologic.autism spectrum

[AS.weighted blankets]

So... I can find weighted blankets, as well as instructions on how to make them, which is good. (yay!)

But I'm not even sure that what I'm actually looking for is possible. I can approximate weighted blankets in the winter by piling lots of blankets on myself. But, in summer, it's too warm and/or humid for that. So I'm trying to find something which would have weight but no to nearly no heat retention (the equivalant of a very thin sheet, or nothing at all). I'm not sure this is possible, though...

(instructions), and a couple of ebay stores which sell them. Also, some other stores with sensory stimulation stuff, just because lots of them are nifty. :)

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Oh my! Why do you want weighted blankets? What do they do for AS? I *REALLY REALLY REALLY* want a weighted blanket with little heat retention, but I'd be happy to have a plain old weighted blanket for winter... I never realized this was anything other than a personal quirk.

One part of my brain is going "Ooooh, weighted blanket sounds like such a niftyhelpful idea". Another is going "waitaminute", because, in the case of the home-made, if the weight is in the pockets, it's not going to be evenly distributed, and clumps have something of an opposite effect. (Manufactured ones seem to have solved that problem, but anything of a reasonable blanket size is very, very pricy. And layered multiple blankets confuse me, pile up in heaps, slide off the bed, and are generally unmanageable and, again, produce the opposite effect).

Ah well, good thing I can stand very large amounts of hot. :)

Could you make a weighted sheet?

Someone else wants this? Cool! I thought I was just weird.

For the "eeighted blanket with no heat retention" I've played around with the idea of creating a metal mesh (high heat conductivity) woven into a large piece of fabric. You'd probably want the mesh covered, but if it was fine enough it could be covered by just a thin layer of fabric and still (I'm hoping) feel fairly comfortable. That would be an "anti-blanket" in that it would help you radiate heat instead of storing it. At least in theory :-}.

Why...?

Why why why?

Perhaps a heavy fabric, but a holey pattern? I really have no idea. Alternately, a good A/C unit in your room, or rocks.

Now I'm imagining a quilt with the batting replaced by chainmail. It'd be a horrible amout of work to make, unfortunatly. . . But if you used fairly thin cloth, it wouldn't retain heat much, while being reasonably heavy. And it would provide some protection from random sword blows. :-)

If you were to take 9- 10 yards of a 5.5 to 7.0 oz linen, (Around $5-6 a yard at Sew Fisticated in Sommerville, or slightly more on line.) wash and dry it several times and then sew it into a baffled quilt with poly pellets as the filling, it should be heavy enough for your purposes and still breath well. It will be machine washable and will get softer with each wash and dry cycle.

Cotton would work, but it will not breathe as well as linen does on the muggy nights and it does not dry out as quickly during the day.

Oh dude, if you figure it out please tell me. I have a really hard time sleeping if either a) my temperature is off (too hot or too cold - I will wake up in the midle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep in the winter at times) or b) I don't have enough weight on me (my comforter is perfect, but a sheet won't cut it). Hell, we could attempt to work on it together, if it seemed like something where two people would indeed be more useful than one.

Thank you for linking to that site!

I am a chronic "explorer" (I pick up and touch everything that's not nailed down) and am dating a relentless fidgeter -- so some of those toys/stuff seems like it would fill a real need for us.

Also - the sensory pillow? Wow. Like something I always knew I wanted but could never put into words.

How about using bungie cords, hooked to strong reinforced grommets in the corners of a smaller-than-normal thin gauze sheet, instead of weights?

Sleep in a waterbed. Put a thin sheet between you and the sack-o-water. Carefully regulate the temperature of said water. (Too high and you wake up sweaty, too low and you wake up with hypothermia). Lots and lots of heavy blankets on top. Back when I was young and couldn't afford air conditioning, this technique allowed me to survive many hot summers.

I'm amazed at the number of responses to this. Anyway, what are poly pellets? Can you feed them to your SOs?

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chainmail quilt

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Easy way to use heavy blankets without overheating

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