sorry guys nothing yet. Had to go into the Hospital yesterday with a slightly raised blood pressure but after 6 hours in the waiting area for bloods and test results got sent home. Had another set of BP taken today and all is ok so we are still waiting for baby to show his/her face

Stubborn lil tyke. :)

Its gonna wait until you go to work mayhem.

any word yet? hope all's ok lizz and mayhem (((hugs)))


our curtain climber is almost 2 months already. still lots of fun and still loved to bits. :D

Couple of weeks overdue now, Lizz......are they talking about inducing you?

:D
http://www.pixies-place.com:81/foru...149#post1518149

Yay to you two again Mayhem!

In other news, my little man has the Chicken Pox. Ho hum.

Do they not routinely vaccinate children for that in the UK?

Oh no, poor little fella! :(

Get well soon Little Pucker!

Nope, not Chicken Pox.

Every other imaginable "childhood" disease, yes.

My poor little man is absolutely covered in itchy blisters now. It's so frustrating to see him suffering but I think the worst is probably over now - he's had no new spots today, so hopefully he'll be well again by next week. Thankfully, getting it early means it's usually quite short lived.

awww. poor little prince. hope he feels better soon!

I had the Chicken Pox when I was about 10 and VERY generously shared with all 3 of my siblings. Thankfully, my son's not had it--he was vaccinated for it and baby girl will be too...it's part of our routine shots here now.

hey everyone,
I have finally found this thread again..
Things are going great on this end, I am now 23 weeks along and have found out the sex as you know all tests results have been clear of anything wrong.

SD - they are talking about making the vaccination routine here too, but since there is quite a lot of controversy about the effectiveness and safety of various different routine vaccinations that are given in the UK, there is quite a lot of opposition to it. According to my Mum, there is evidence to support the fact that catching chicken pox as a child reduces the chances of contracting leukaemia, so if that's true, I'd rather he had chicken pox!

I am considering not giving him the 3 in 1 Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccination too - instead I may pay privately for him to have the Measles jab and not bother with the other two. Apparently in most cases, they are only effective for the first few years, so in fact make it more likely that if a child is going to get it, they're more likely to get it in their teens (far more dangerous for boys in the case of mumps, as it can make them infertile, and for girls in the case of Rubella as it can cause Rubella syndrome in babies if caught when pregnant). I am still torn about this decision. I want to do what is actually best for my son, not what everyone else tells me is best for him, which means trying to decide what research and which doctors I believe.

In the US college students must show a booster for Measles or a resistance in order to register for college. I know I had to get lab work at 30 years old to prove I did not need a shot.

our little one had four shots and the new oral rota vac the other day. it was not a fun afternoon for her, poor little girl, but i feel that for most vaccines, the benefits outweigh the risks.

I agree with you - the majority of vaccines are beneficial, it's just measles and rubella that I'm not convinced about. There is also controversy that the 3 in 1 MMR may be linked to Autism. It's all a bit of a minefield.

i recently read that cases of autism have not decrease since the removal of the mercury preservative.

I read that too. ^^

this may have been covered previously................

As most..(all??) of you know, I've got a 2.5 month old baby boy and he's cute as a button, and making all kinds of baby noises.

I talk to him like he's grown up. Maybe it's a fluke, but he smiles (bigger) when I make the same sounds that he makes.

I don't want to stunt his development, but is my making "baby noises" going to help or hinder his development?

Is it better if I do a combination?

(Just a sidebar, holy crap I feel so damn stupid for NOT remembering this from when is big brother was a baby, but.....I don't.)

Of course it was ONLY 9 years ago) :shrug:

you won't stunt his development at all. babies love that verbal pingpong. not only does it help develop language skills to hear the same noise twice in quick succession but it encourages them to make new noises. plus all the eye and physical contact you're giving him when you play this game have immeasurable benefits. you're connecting in so many ways.

it is a good idea to use "big people" language, though - asking a question and actually pausing for a response, touching parts of his body and naming them, singing, finger plays like itsy bitsy spider, going through the house or on a walk and pointing out objects while you name them, flicking on and off the lights while you say "on, off" ... all that kind of stuff ... none of it ever hurts.

i say mix it up. variety is the spice of life.

Thanks wyndhy!

How's your little one doing?


Daniel is SUCH a "daddy's boy" - editor's note, -please feel free to ignore that editorial statement :)

I say go with your instincts. However you feel is natural to communicate with baby is usually the right way.

It's empowering for babies to have their noises repeated to them; they learn that they have a way of altering their environment through verbal communication, but obviously they need to hear adult words too.

You probably speak to your baby in adult words more than you realise, and using 'motherese' (the sing song, over inunciated 'baby voice') is absolutely fine too. In fact, it helps baby identify important words (usually nouns) like Mummy, Daddy, Baby, Teddy, Dog, Cat etc.

When my little one was really tiny I found it easier to sing to him than talk. After a while I ran out of things to say to him, but could sing him songs all day long. Now he's 13 months old, it's unsurprising then that as well as Mama, Dadda, Hello and Bye, the only other thing he says is 'Row, Row'. Usually repeatedly comlete with the rocking motion until I finally cave and sing it a couple of times round!

she's wonderful! thanks for asking. daddy's girl, i think ... she talks to him way more than she talks to me (harrumph! little traitor). she's giving us lots of those big smiles, keeping us on our toes and generally ruling the house. she can't take her eyes off her big brother and sister, grudgingly takes one bottle of milk but otherwise wants it straight from the source, sings up a storm and loves to have a chat with her raggedy ann doll. she likes the night life, but once she's asleep, she stays there til we get her up at 7 or 8 to eat, so i can't complain too much (although i do anyway:p). she's this close to rolling onto her belly and wants to sit up so bad, it's a riot. she's a riot. we're having lots of fun.

Little mayhem is doing really well. Had his heal stick on Tuesday which lead to the first real tears that we had seen from him....poor little man.

BUT last night, well actually 4:30am, he smiled.... yes little mayhem smiled at us.. first mom and then me!!! YAY. It totally made the last couple of weeks with little sleep worth it.

You know what they say, Mayhem -

'When does a baby smile?'

- 'Just in time'

Glad your little one doesn't cry too much. Ours didn't either and it makes it so muchc easier to bond. Having said that - keeping on top of their needs so they don't cry is exhausting!

That made my morning to read about Little Mayhem's smile. :nod:

How's Little Pucker doing with those chicken pox Lou? Hopefully the little fella is traveling at a good clip down the road to recovery. :wish:

Aw thanks for asking Iowaman. Not only have the spots all healed over now, but he has hardly any marks left from them either. One of the other kids at nursery is still covered in marks all over his face and he caught them a week earlier than our little one.

Unfortunately, he seems to have come down with a cold already - it's just been one thing after another since September - a combination of cold weather and starting nursery I think!

Oh and he's travelling at a good clip everywhere these days. He is constantly on his feet now - hardly ever crawls at all. Looks like his babyhood is nearly over!! :(

Just keep remembering how anxious you were to see him walk. :rofl:

This is lengthy but I'd appreciate all of you reading through and giving me any thoughts you may have - especially our pixies that have experience with this sort of stuff.


Our little boy is in speech therapy and someone's decided he needed to be evaluated by a developmental and occupational therapist. The reasons are two-fold: one.) I am trying to get him in a free preschool class (we cannot afford one) cuz I think that being with his peers several days a week in a setting that is more structured than a play-date will do more for his speech issues than any therapy or one-on-one practice will, but they will not qualify kids based solely on speech deficiencies...yes, he must "be bad" at something else in order to get help, and two.) The OT screener thought he was hyper-active and also showed some difficulty handling scissors (but that's bullshit) and mid-line problems - which I've notice but I don't believe they are as severe as the therapist thinks. It is something we work on here at home so that it doesn’t manifest itself into dyslexia or reading problems later. So because of the things the OT noticed during his speech therapy session, they’ve decided to send occupational and developmental therapists out to the house for evaluations and I have agreed.

Now that you have the back story, here's my gripe, my in-your-face-you-lousy-therapists-and-your-standardized-bullshit, and my dilemma:

The OT was here at the house and had the boy do all sorts of stuff like cutting and gluing, puzzles and beads...the usual occupational stuff ... and when he glues his sun onto the paper, he sticks it on the bottom and the therapist says "On the ground, huh? That's interesting," none too kindly and looks at me in this eyebrows raised, I think he's got problems sort of way and my boy says, "Yup. It's setting."

I almost stuck out my tongue, but figured I'd be setting a bad example. :p

Then, after he's done gluing, he asks me if he can wash his hands cuz there's glue all over them. I tell him yes and at the same time the therapists asks him if he doesn't like his hands to be dirty (indicative - to them at least - of sensory problems). He looks to me and I excuse him to wash his hands and the therapist wants to know if I think he has a problem and explains to me why she thinks he does. So I asked her, "Do you like it when your hands are sticky, or do you prefer to wash them?"

she never did answer my question. my faith in these people is quickly sliding away. Why are they focusing so much on the unusual stuff ... tha "bad" stuff? What ever happened to the sum of the parts?

She takes her results from the day (she told me he scored at 53 months – he’s 41 months) and the assessment questionnaire I had filled out and leaves. She calls me a few days later with questions, telling me “the test has scored him as having severe sensory problems.”

First of all … “the test has scored?” Since when does a test do the scoring? Where’s the human factor?

And secondly … she was here, she met him. He hugged her and talked to her and sat mostly still for almost an hour and a half (she took her damn sweet time). He talked to her about how he likes to go swimming, and help me bake cookies, and how he takes showers, and likes to eat mac and cheese and carrots and steak, and likes to play at the playground and go zoom-real-fast down the slide.

But this idiot is using the stupid questions they ask on these stupid questionnaires, and the stupid standardized way they score it instead of an over-all view of him as a three-year old, middle-child boy who doesn't care for getting sticky and (gasp!) doesn't conform to the absolute perfect standardized kid.

I politely reminded her that I know my child best, and I would do anything in my power to help him in areas that I see as potentially problematic, but just because he doesn't want to swing on the swings 2 times out of the 10 I ask, or would prefer to play quietly on occasion as opposed to playing with motion-type toys all the time, and sometimes gets pissed when the sun in his face, and doesn't always like to be held upside-down or spun in circles, and avoids foods and smells he doesn't like, and takes his shoes and sock off almost the minute we walk in the door does not mean he has a problem. In fact, it means he's human. He has likes and dislikes, just like an adult. He manages to behave reasonably well when we’re out, and he is kind and smart and fun and functional. Yes, he has some quirks, but they are nothing that interfere with his life in any significant way. They have also lessened as he gets older. I also reminded her that just because they recommend treatment doesn't mean I must agree to it.

She politely reminds me that that is my prerogative.

All i wanted to do was get him speech therapy. He isn’t even that deficient but he can be a little hard to understand - especially if you don’t know him well, or he’s talking on the phone. And since he’s gong to be headed into kindergarten pretty much right when he turns 5, I wanted to try and clear up most of his speech issues early so that he doesn’t get the shaft by a teacher who has 24 other kids to worry about and will not have the time to say “What did you say?” and actually listen closely to him. He’ll just get “yessed" - he knows when he’s being yessed, and he hates it - or worse, he'll be ignored. But now I’ve got myself and him into “the system” and I’m worried they are going to try and change him and get him to fit some norm that someone, somewhere has defined as ideal. I’m worried they are going to pester me to get him therapy that I don’t want him to have nor do I think he needs. Even the speech therapist recently asked me about his hyper-activity. She’s never (prior to this eval he had) mentioned anything to me about his behavior being problematic while he’s with her or potentially problematic later on when he has to sit still and pay attention in class. I asked her if he was violent, she said no. I asked her if she thought he couldn’t follow directions. She said no. She added that in fact, she puts some very high demands on him and he usually does very well. I asked her why she thought he had a problem and she told me that after his OT screen at the school, the therapist saw him as “excited” and asked if he was always like that. Basically, she’s been corrupted.

It used to be that people just chalked hyper activity and little kid behavior up to “being a kid,” but now they want our kids to act like adults.

My dilemma is that I don’t know if I should just pull him from the system all together or keep the speech and possibly have an OT work with him a few times a month on the mid-line problem. I only wanted their help in the first place cuz I couldn’t seem to help him on my own - the dynamics were too charged between mother and son to get more than a few minutes of real work in a day. But now I feel that I’ve done him a disservice; that I have allowed these people to label my child, and try to change my child all for my worry of what may or may not happen the future. I love him just the way he is, quirks and all. Like i said, he’s functional – none of his little quirks have ever (or likely will ever) kept him from living out his life in any way that I would consider outside the normal range. I don't know if I should allow them to continue with his therapy just so I can get him qualified for a class, either. I think I'd rather him be a little different and lispy, maybe even have him begin kindergarten at six if we need to, than subject him to philosophy and technique I do not agree with, and the pressure to conform he's sure to get from his teacher if he ends up in therapy.

The developmental peeps have not been here yet - they are due in a few days. I don't know if i'm going to keep the appointment yet. I am curios what they'll have to say, but I know he picks up on all this and I don't think he needs more undermining of his self-confidence, or more people pointing out what's wrong.

Yes, he’s hyper. Yes, he can be weird. Yes, he has some unusual habits. But when did all this get labeled as retarded or underdeveloped or unhealthy or deficient?


shit.

Yes keep him home til he's 6.

In my district students do not qualify for ESE services and headstart is ESE or Title 1, unless there is at least a 25% lag in a developmental field. It seems as if in many areas he does not meet that sort of criteria but that the OT may think she is "helping" by labeling him with the sensory issues. We know sensory integration is directly tied to a student's ability to master higher level concepts. At the Title 1 schools in my district all K student sare given 30 minutes of sensory integration activities daily. Of course it's fun and the kids love it.

In my district parents have right of refusal of services even after testing. However refusal is all or nothing. So here if you refuse OT the speech disappears too.

I'm not able to speak from a non-biased place on these issues. I was an early interventionist for 8 years. I am also the mother of a child with disabilities. Albeit many less disabilities than he had initially thanks in part to the services we took part in when he was very young.

Currently we are continually asking our children to do things they are not developmentally ready for. Schools know it, and teachers know it and everywhere we go we tell everyone that it's wrong. However we do not have the power to change it. Parents do. The last PTA meeting I went to there were 12 teachers and 4 parents. If parents don't put a stop to all this it will continue.

In my district students who get into preschool on ESE or Title 1 are usually labeled DD with no specifics. The once in school at 6 their label has to be reviewed to see if any further diagnosis is needed or have they simply caught up.

Not sure any of it helped but I understand where you are coming from.

thanks for the input lil.

Putting off school is something we are obviously considering because as you point out, he will be expected to keep up with the standards, no matter how stupid I and many others may think some of those standards are. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I can definitely say we will at least let him try. There is a no harm/no foul option here after one month.

It's at school-age (aka five) here that they must notify schools of any developmental deficiencies. At least that's what they tell me. We can get also get speech and no OT, or vice versa if we want it – again, this is what they tell me. He will get re-evaled every 6 months to one year, depending on recommendations. I totally agree that therapy helps - his speech therapy certainly hasn't hurt his speech so far, but what I've consented to is dragging us into muddy waters.

wanted to add that becasue of the points you raise, i'll be talking to the IU to double check on these standards. thanks again

In the 8 years I worked with very young children I found that many many boys in particular were much better off for having given them another year of playful development.

At my school in K they are expected to have 60 sight words and write 4 sentences on topic about a given prompt by the end of K. Crazy.

I like how we challenge kids to do more and give them more credit than we ever used to, but what I do find crazy is the way they make child (and parent for that matter) feel less than acceptable when they can't meet all the criteria. When I worked with K kids in the kid writing program last year, there were plenty who had most of it down, but not all, and yet they were not judged on their own individual accomplishments. It was all or nothing.

This is the same gripe I have with the CCIU here, and much of the standardization of acceptable behavior that the creation of these programs has spawned. They find out that our boy exhibits some of the symptoms for SPD, (and show me one kid who doesn’t have a few, and I’ll show you the child with abnormal behavior) and he’s labeled as having severe sensory problems. Thankfully, I’m not ignorant of the symptoms or the treatments. If I had been, they’d have us in fits about our “deficient” child, and enrolling him in every program or therapy they suggested, constantly worried that he’d never measure up to his peers.

I’m not trying to downplay the need for therapy for kids who need it or the great strides in early education that head start and similar programs have accomplished. But they are doing him no good by lumping him in with kids who have such severe SPD that they cannot function in day to day life. I’m sure our boy would have even more issues if we always coddled to his unusual quirks and never challenged him to do things he was uncomfortable with, but he has always been very funtional. When I talk to therapists about it, I am the one who gets coddled. They think I am only protesting because I do not want to accept that my child has a disorder.

Perhaps we just need different therapists, lil?

There was a specific time when the OT and ST brought him back after his screening at the school The ST starts telling me about the mid-line problem. She’s fascinated, telling me how they made him do it again and again, "It was wild! He just stops.” While the OT was explaining to her why it happens and how it means he’ll have trouble reading. I'm guessing form the way they're telling me the story that he was made to do this task while he was talked about as if he wasn’t even there. And then they bring him to me and start all over again. I told the OT that i though lots of kids don’t pick a dominant hand til 4 or 5. She said that was true. I also told her that I thought the way they made him perform and talked about it while he did it, skewed the results. I think he kept doing it because they kept saying he was doing it. I added I’ve noticed he does it at home, but he doesn’t do it all the time, and rarely with certain objects like crayons and pencils and utensils. Still, I was told it’s not normal. So even though we've just established that many kids have not picked a dominant hand at his age and he doesn't do it all the time, and at this point it's an issue that needs therapy. Would you say it's standard procedure for them to do this, or have I just gotten a bad lot?

I have family who work for th IU in other counties and they've said as long as he's enjoying it, keep him in and just pull him at 4 before they need to document for school. I am going to call my cousin and sister today and ask them what they think about this new assessment, too. But again, I’m just not sure that this is good for him. No matter how much he likes it, or how much fun he has doing it (i also have a little guilt about using services that other kids need way more than he does) or how helpful they think they’re being. Hubby also says not to worry so much. That we can balance out the extremes with what we do here at home.

I prolly sound so petty, considering there are kids out there way worse off, and i prolly am worrying too much but there it is.

In my area the protocol is individuals evaluations that are discussed at a meeting with the family once all the information is gathered. So peeps don't compare notes til the meeting. Makes for less bias.

((hugs)) He's your lovie so it is important. You worry cause you love him and want to make good choices for him til he can make his own.

update:
he performed really well for the developmental eval (as we knew he would) and the service coordinator has an approach that's closer to our own. turns out she's a neighbor, too, so we got to talk a little less formally than i have been able to do with the other therapists. we both agreed that the boy would not benefit from any of the classes (the ST was a little misinformed about the types of off-campus classes offered - there are speech and language classes but they're filled with kids who are much more delayed than our boy and are therefore less like preschool, more like therapy. and head start was never something we thought he needed). she also agreed she saw no SPD or hyper-activity in him, either. she told me (on the QT) that she's found that many of their contracted OT's tend to approach any quirks with some very strict interpretations and do exactly what i was moaning about. so the bottom line is that if the contracted OT's recommended therapy is too much, she'll send out the IU's OT, or relay what she saw to their OT, so they can come up with a more appropriate plan. or, more likely, not recommend therapy at all.

still waiting to se if he's still 25% delayed in speech - he finished up his test last week and we won't be hearing from the service coordinator for a few weeks yet. i wouldn't be surprised either way, though. i do like the half hour or so he gets with his ST every week - he really enjoys it and i think it builds up his confidence so much - he doesn't get nearly as frustrated as he used to when people couldn't understand him. then again, people couldn't understand him a lot more often. but i also wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.

on the off chance they recommend OT therapy i do not agree with, we'll either work together toward something we can all agree on. i can also decline OT therapy and still keep the speech if he qualifies

i did talk to one of my cousins who owns a company that works as a subcontractor for the IU where she lives and she agreed with me. my sister, who works directly for the IU, didn't. she still thinks i should fight to get him in this class and use the phone call from the OT telling me he has severe SPD as ammo. my sister's always been a bit uptight. :D

i worried for nothing.
as usual.

thanks again lil (((hugs)))

You didn't worry for nothing. You worried for the best reason ever created.

:) true dat. i do love that little guy to bits.