ASD kids are picky. Try to keep foods on hand that are healthy and that the kid likes. Let them eat what they want from what is on hand.
Hey them a good multivitamin. Disney Princess Gummy vitamins worked well for my kids.
Make sure they get outside every single day for some physical activity. You may have to work at making sure this happens at the right time of day as well.
Kids need to be both physically tired and mentally tired to sleep. ASD kids have trouble getting the mental stimulation they need. Video tapes and video games sometimes serve them well.
Don't substitute physical exhaustion alone for physical tiredness plus mental tiredness. This can cause night terrors, where they wake up screaming after an hour.
Be accommodating of their weird preferences as much as possible. My oldest slept all kinds of weird places when he was little.
I have had a parenting blog in the past. I have fantasies I will eventually get back to that.
Best.
My oldest has had sleep issues from birth and was a boatload of trouble in the form of curiosity killed the cat and you can't tell me no. He's a handful.
From age 2, he was taught to keep himself entertained and out if trouble so I could sleep a little while he was up nights. He was taught to tell me when he spilled stuff in the middle of the night so I could clean it up. He did not get in trouble. He only got asked what he spilled so I could clean it up properly.
I gave my kids a lot of latitude and worked with them to make sure their needs were adequately met. I did a whole lot of dealing with the woman in the mirror and trying to not hang my crap on them. I facilitated their interests and made sure they were reasonably safe.
I did things like rent Jurassic Park and watched it first, then watched it with them so I could pause it and warn them about icky surprise scenes. They very much wanted to see it they weren't that old. I made it as comfortable and not traumatic as I could and let them have their way.
I started with laying that foundation from birth. By the time they were teens, we had a good relationship. They never went through rebel teen crap. They didn't need to. There was nothing to rebel against.