Poppet is in week four of a bout of diarrhoea (woo, spelled right the first time, get me!). Tests show she doesn't have a bug, so it's probably some sort of viral thing. It's not pleasant, but she's fine. What's interesting to note is that the last few days she's been really reactive to touch. If you pick her up, or hold her, or she knocks herself, or anything really she gets bright red marks. It rather looks as though she has dermatographic urticaria - a small scratch to her arm flared up in a big welt. The font of knowledge wikipedia says it can occur post virally. Am I meant to notify the doctor of this?
Good grief, but can none of my children be normal in the health stakes?
Showing posts with label parenting is hard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting is hard. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Play Assessment
I'm on a roll tonight ;) Actually, I've just been reminded that Pixie has got a bit further down the line with his SALT (speech and language therapy) assessment. He had his play assessment (which is literally someone assessing him while playing!) and we now have a professional opinion of what we're facing.
He does have a stammer and he does have dysfluency and lack of coherence in his speech. The therapist is unsure whether the lack of coherence is down to the massive amount of tongue action he does (seriously, it's all over the place, hanging out like a dog, flapping around his mouth.... It reminds me that I remember thinking that my tongue used to feel like it was too big for my mouth a lot. I don't now, so it could actually be that he needs to grow into his tongue and all of that will be fine, but otoh it could be something else). She wants us to concentrate on dealing with the stammer first as that will give his head to grow around his tongue if that's what's needed.
In all honesty we've not been great at putting into practice all the strategies we've been taught. In fact, I'd go as far as saying we're reacting worse to the stammer than we ever have done. At least, I certainly am. I've found myself finishing his sentence or quickly getting my side of the conversation in before he has a chance to speak as I can't face listening to him trying to get his words out. Not good. At least writing it down here makes me accountable to making changes. That, and we've got another appointment series starting this week.
He does have a stammer and he does have dysfluency and lack of coherence in his speech. The therapist is unsure whether the lack of coherence is down to the massive amount of tongue action he does (seriously, it's all over the place, hanging out like a dog, flapping around his mouth.... It reminds me that I remember thinking that my tongue used to feel like it was too big for my mouth a lot. I don't now, so it could actually be that he needs to grow into his tongue and all of that will be fine, but otoh it could be something else). She wants us to concentrate on dealing with the stammer first as that will give his head to grow around his tongue if that's what's needed.
In all honesty we've not been great at putting into practice all the strategies we've been taught. In fact, I'd go as far as saying we're reacting worse to the stammer than we ever have done. At least, I certainly am. I've found myself finishing his sentence or quickly getting my side of the conversation in before he has a chance to speak as I can't face listening to him trying to get his words out. Not good. At least writing it down here makes me accountable to making changes. That, and we've got another appointment series starting this week.
Start of the Road
I'm meant to be editing some photos of our recent holiday but a slight technical issue (flat camera battery, whoops!) means I can't get them on to the computer so I thought as I'm here I'd update about the salicylic acid intolerance testing we're doing with Pixie. (I also want to stay online to stat check as I've just taken the decision to de-anonymise this blog with real life people and have put a link on my facebook page. Eek! So hi, those of you who are looking ;) )
We'd made the decision to cut out salicylic acid from Pixie's diet without discussing it with a medical professional first. Firstly, because we didn't think it would do any harm, and secondly because it can take two to three weeks to get a non-urgent appointment with my surgery and frankly I'm not that patient. We thought we saw some success and I think my last post on this subject saw a link between eating a 'moderate' food and a worsening of his symptoms. Since then we got to a stage where his symptoms were still there in varying degrees even when we were very strictly sticking to 'low' and 'negligible' level foods (for the list we've been working off, see here) but if we gave him something he wasn't used to he'd have terrible urticaria (hives, to you and me) around his face and terribly itchy, dark eyes. Every time we thought about giving up the low salicylic acid diet (Christ, I'm not keep typing that out, LSA diet from now on I think!) because we couldn't see any reason why his symptoms were flaring, we'd accidentally let our guard down and have a horrendous reaction to tend to. This isn't the best picture as it was taken on my phone (and please excuse the dinner down his top, which I've just noticed!), but the redness is lots and lots of hives:
We'd made the decision to cut out salicylic acid from Pixie's diet without discussing it with a medical professional first. Firstly, because we didn't think it would do any harm, and secondly because it can take two to three weeks to get a non-urgent appointment with my surgery and frankly I'm not that patient. We thought we saw some success and I think my last post on this subject saw a link between eating a 'moderate' food and a worsening of his symptoms. Since then we got to a stage where his symptoms were still there in varying degrees even when we were very strictly sticking to 'low' and 'negligible' level foods (for the list we've been working off, see here) but if we gave him something he wasn't used to he'd have terrible urticaria (hives, to you and me) around his face and terribly itchy, dark eyes. Every time we thought about giving up the low salicylic acid diet (Christ, I'm not keep typing that out, LSA diet from now on I think!) because we couldn't see any reason why his symptoms were flaring, we'd accidentally let our guard down and have a horrendous reaction to tend to. This isn't the best picture as it was taken on my phone (and please excuse the dinner down his top, which I've just noticed!), but the redness is lots and lots of hives:
While this was going on, we were referred to a paediatrician regarding chicken pox vaccines, so we took the opportunity to discuss this with the doctor. Unfortunately he confirmed that there are no tests we can do for this particular allergy but we can test for individual foods. We're working on a list of things we're pretty sure cause a reaction in Pixie; we know that mangos, flavoured crisps, anything tinned and mint cause a problem. Because the list of potentials is so big I think we may have to do staggered testing as we want to get moving on it and we can't overload his poor body with things that may cause a reaction. His body needs time to get over the responses he has (or doesn't) but I don't want to wait indefinitely for testing.
To be honest I'm not sure where we go from here. Even if it's not the salicylic acid, there's definitely a pretty major list of allergies/intolerances he's got. I don't know how he can avoid even the ones we know cause a problem for the rest of his life - cleaning teeth is a problem, eating anything but home made food is a problem, having a varied diet is a problem.... Unfortunately, I think getting a solid answer is going to be a problem too :( Having said that, one thing that isn't a problem is Pixie's response to it all. He has been totally amazing at picking up that he must ask if he's allowed to eat any food offered to him by anyone other than me or his dad. He knows quite a few things that he's not allowed and will stop someone giving him it if necessary. He also saves me any of the sweeties he's given but can't eat - excellent!
PS - hello to the FIFTY EIGHT people who have just checked this blog in the last hour!
Monday, 10 September 2012
Sleep Training: Stage Four
I've just put Pops down for her nap, which is the commencement of stage four of our sleep training. Because....the cot is in Pixie's room! A day of naps in his room followed by them rooming in tonight. Yikes.
Stage three went really well. She now has her last milk during the story, we all say goodnight and as Daddy and Pixie leave the room she goes into her cot wide awake. There's sometimes a bit of grousing but it's rarely all out crying and not for more than a few minutes. That might change tonight when she knows someone else is in the room with her (especially as Pixie has a tendency to chant 'shh' at her if she cries), but, well, we'll sort it.
Best of all we get to go back into our ACTUAL bed. Amazeballs. Although I'll miss watching films in bed ;)
Stage three went really well. She now has her last milk during the story, we all say goodnight and as Daddy and Pixie leave the room she goes into her cot wide awake. There's sometimes a bit of grousing but it's rarely all out crying and not for more than a few minutes. That might change tonight when she knows someone else is in the room with her (especially as Pixie has a tendency to chant 'shh' at her if she cries), but, well, we'll sort it.
Best of all we get to go back into our ACTUAL bed. Amazeballs. Although I'll miss watching films in bed ;)
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Third Stage of Sleep Training
Last night was night 7 of the sleep training regime. We've been taking a slowly, slowly, catchy monkey approach and made minor changes for 3 nights before introducing the next stage.
Night 1-3 - Introduced the '10 minute' rule of not going in to her, and even then only for a cuddle.
Night 4-6 - Began putting her to bed awake after her last feed instead of waiting for her to feed to sleep
Night 7-10 - Bring last feed forward slightly it's during story time, then putting her into the cot awake and all leave the room together (usually the boys leave and I stay to give a last feed in the dark and quiet)
I really expected this change to cause problems as she NEVER gets put to bed at night like that, it's always been just me and her for a final feed. But I turned the light off, gave her a cuddle, sang the going to bed song, and popped her in. There was maybe a minute of babbling, no crying at all, and that was that until SIX AM! Not a single peep from her.
Amazeballs.
I mean, 7am would be better, but... ;)
Hopefully the next two nights will go as well as last night, and then we'll move the cot into Pixie's room (again!). I'm undecided whether to go straight to leave them both in the room together as she falls asleep, or have 3 nights of him leaving the room for another story and then coming in while she's asleep.
I think because we're habit breaking, the very slowly routine changing is working really well for us. Sure, it takes longer, but it's not so much of a change in one go.
How's your sleep been?
Night 1-3 - Introduced the '10 minute' rule of not going in to her, and even then only for a cuddle.
Night 4-6 - Began putting her to bed awake after her last feed instead of waiting for her to feed to sleep
Night 7-10 - Bring last feed forward slightly it's during story time, then putting her into the cot awake and all leave the room together (usually the boys leave and I stay to give a last feed in the dark and quiet)
I really expected this change to cause problems as she NEVER gets put to bed at night like that, it's always been just me and her for a final feed. But I turned the light off, gave her a cuddle, sang the going to bed song, and popped her in. There was maybe a minute of babbling, no crying at all, and that was that until SIX AM! Not a single peep from her.
Amazeballs.
I mean, 7am would be better, but... ;)
Hopefully the next two nights will go as well as last night, and then we'll move the cot into Pixie's room (again!). I'm undecided whether to go straight to leave them both in the room together as she falls asleep, or have 3 nights of him leaving the room for another story and then coming in while she's asleep.
I think because we're habit breaking, the very slowly routine changing is working really well for us. Sure, it takes longer, but it's not so much of a change in one go.
How's your sleep been?
Sunday, 2 September 2012
Sleep Training An 8 Month Old: Continued
We're on night 4 of sleep training and we're still camped out on the airbed!
Night 2 we had exactly the same plan. It was favourable when she didn't wake at the recently expected 10pm-ish, so that was nice. She didn't stir til 2am-ish when I think she'd have gone back to sleep except it turns out the not unsubstantial amount of noise an airbed makes when you roll over, could be heard in her (our!) room. I think our noise woke her up just a bit too much so I went to give her a cuddle and after a couple of minutes more crying she went back to sleep. There were a few more stirs but nothing of any consequence, although they increased in quantity from 6am til getting up time (6.50am, still a vast improvement on 5am!).
Night 3 brought a disagreement between me and the hubby. He thought there was no stirring until early morning, I beg to differ*! Regardless of who was right (me, obvs), nobody went up to her so it mustn't have been anything of any note. Slightly earlier wake up this morning of 6am, although when you've had nearly a full night's sleep that'll do, donkey.
Tonight (night 4!) I ended up putting her into her cot while she was still awake (normally we feed to sleep) and I expected a long, long screaming fit. BUT, 3 minutes later she was asleep. Hurrah! I suspect there might be an unsettled night ahead of us but she needs to be able to go into her cot awake so that she can share a bedroom with Pixie. We'll work on that - she goes in her cot awake for naps so there's no reason why she can't.
*In the interest of transparency it's only fair I point out that I just asked him if he had thought there hadn't been any awakenings and he said no, he wasn't sure which is why he'd asked me. So I was definitely right ;)
Night 2 we had exactly the same plan. It was favourable when she didn't wake at the recently expected 10pm-ish, so that was nice. She didn't stir til 2am-ish when I think she'd have gone back to sleep except it turns out the not unsubstantial amount of noise an airbed makes when you roll over, could be heard in her (our!) room. I think our noise woke her up just a bit too much so I went to give her a cuddle and after a couple of minutes more crying she went back to sleep. There were a few more stirs but nothing of any consequence, although they increased in quantity from 6am til getting up time (6.50am, still a vast improvement on 5am!).
Night 3 brought a disagreement between me and the hubby. He thought there was no stirring until early morning, I beg to differ*! Regardless of who was right (me, obvs), nobody went up to her so it mustn't have been anything of any note. Slightly earlier wake up this morning of 6am, although when you've had nearly a full night's sleep that'll do, donkey.
Tonight (night 4!) I ended up putting her into her cot while she was still awake (normally we feed to sleep) and I expected a long, long screaming fit. BUT, 3 minutes later she was asleep. Hurrah! I suspect there might be an unsettled night ahead of us but she needs to be able to go into her cot awake so that she can share a bedroom with Pixie. We'll work on that - she goes in her cot awake for naps so there's no reason why she can't.
*In the interest of transparency it's only fair I point out that I just asked him if he had thought there hadn't been any awakenings and he said no, he wasn't sure which is why he'd asked me. So I was definitely right ;)
Friday, 31 August 2012
Sleep Training an 8 month Old
I know sleep training isn't for everyone, and the way we do it might make some people raise their eyebrows but there we have it. When you spend a proportion of your night in tears because the baby's awake for the 6th time, or because you've spent half an hour sitting up with her until she falls dead asleep only for her eyes to spring open and the wailing start again the minute you try to transfer her to bed, well, something has to change. So now the month long hammering of cold-development splurge-teething we've had which has totally kicked our sleep patterns is over, we've decided to go for sleep training again.
We've previously tried a softly-softly approach to sleep training. Back when she was younger I had to get her to adjust to going to nap on her own without being fed to sleep and we also used the core night method with some success overnight (as we knew she could go longer than she was at the time without feeding in the night). Because of this, we knew that the more gentle approaches to sleep training such as pick up-put down, or the gentle withdrawal didn't work - our returning presence made things worse (we found this with Pixie too).
We know from past experience that Pops won't settle back to sleep in the same room as us; she knows we're there and she's damn well going to keep going til she gets that cuddle and feed. Which is why last night found me and my husband on an airbed in the front room. Glamping! At the 11th hour (literally! We'd just turned the lights off to go to sleep) we decided that as well as letting her learn to self-settle again we'd take the opportunity to night wean as well. We had 4 glorious nights of no waking from 7pm-6am either side of our camping trip a month ago and she eats 3 meals a day plus snacks (as well as nursing) so we're confident she's getting enough day time calories. Almost as soon as we decided that, she woke up. We let her cry for 10 minutes, then her daddy went up to give her a cuddle. She cried for another 10 minutes after he put her back to bed so I went in for a cuddle. And then, joy of joys, she went to sleep about 5 minutes later! I was totally expecting it to carry on for about 3 hours.
She woke a lot in the night. At least 6, although I was too bleary to count. But each time she cried for less than 10 minutes. I got up to feed her at 6.50am because frankly my boobs would have exploded if I hadn't! First morning she's not been up and at 'em at 5am, WOOP! (My husband is probably wooping louder tbh, as it's him that's got up at that ridiculous time. Hurrah for him!)
I reckon there's going to be a few more nights on the airbed ahead of us, but early indicators seem favourable. Click for continued success please, as our sanity depends on it!
We've previously tried a softly-softly approach to sleep training. Back when she was younger I had to get her to adjust to going to nap on her own without being fed to sleep and we also used the core night method with some success overnight (as we knew she could go longer than she was at the time without feeding in the night). Because of this, we knew that the more gentle approaches to sleep training such as pick up-put down, or the gentle withdrawal didn't work - our returning presence made things worse (we found this with Pixie too).
We know from past experience that Pops won't settle back to sleep in the same room as us; she knows we're there and she's damn well going to keep going til she gets that cuddle and feed. Which is why last night found me and my husband on an airbed in the front room. Glamping! At the 11th hour (literally! We'd just turned the lights off to go to sleep) we decided that as well as letting her learn to self-settle again we'd take the opportunity to night wean as well. We had 4 glorious nights of no waking from 7pm-6am either side of our camping trip a month ago and she eats 3 meals a day plus snacks (as well as nursing) so we're confident she's getting enough day time calories. Almost as soon as we decided that, she woke up. We let her cry for 10 minutes, then her daddy went up to give her a cuddle. She cried for another 10 minutes after he put her back to bed so I went in for a cuddle. And then, joy of joys, she went to sleep about 5 minutes later! I was totally expecting it to carry on for about 3 hours.
She woke a lot in the night. At least 6, although I was too bleary to count. But each time she cried for less than 10 minutes. I got up to feed her at 6.50am because frankly my boobs would have exploded if I hadn't! First morning she's not been up and at 'em at 5am, WOOP! (My husband is probably wooping louder tbh, as it's him that's got up at that ridiculous time. Hurrah for him!)
I reckon there's going to be a few more nights on the airbed ahead of us, but early indicators seem favourable. Click for continued success please, as our sanity depends on it!
Monday, 13 August 2012
This is an interesting post about discipling your children, and one that hit a slight nerve today as I battle over a week's worth of camping/poorly baby/insomnia/child with nightmares/annoying dog sleeplessness.
I think most people recognise that smacking isn't a helpful child discipline tool, don't they? Yet shouting at children is seen as an ok thing to do, whether you're a parent or other caregiver. But would you shout at anyone else who was annoying you? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get away with that with your partner, your boss or subordinates or your friends. So why do we do it with kids?
I think most people recognise that smacking isn't a helpful child discipline tool, don't they? Yet shouting at children is seen as an ok thing to do, whether you're a parent or other caregiver. But would you shout at anyone else who was annoying you? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get away with that with your partner, your boss or subordinates or your friends. So why do we do it with kids?
Thursday, 19 July 2012
NCT Newsletter
I've written an article for the NCT newsletter, whose subject is 'communication' this time round. The NCT, by the way, have had the pleasure of me volunteering (no, I don't know what I was thinking either!) to assist the co-ordination of the nearly new sale and various other things.
Anyway, I've just sent it across and it's here:
Pixie was always a physically advanced baby and toddler, so in a sense I was expecting him to be a slower talker (I’d heard the adage ‘a baby’s a walker or a talker but not both’!), so when his peers picked up words slightly faster than him I wasn’t bothered and assumed he’d get there in his own time.
Just before Christmas 2011 (when he was two and a half) his dad and I started to notice that Pixie was stuttering. At that point he was having a huge burst of vocabulary so we put it down to his mouth catching up with his brain and didn’t really think much more about it. It happened again, and again, and in about February we realised that what he was doing was above and beyond ‘normal’ childhood development and in the realms of having a speech problem.
His stutter has presented perfectly typically. He’s 3 (most stutters present between 3-5 years), he’s male (approximately 3/5 stutterers are male), he has parents with slight speech issues (there appears to be a familial link between stutterers, although the exact cause is unknown) and he’s had a great deal of stressful change in a short period of time (new sibling and a change of childcare provider) – I’m not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! Unfortunately knowing that he’s ‘typical’ hasn’t assuaged the sadness I feel watching him struggle to get his words out.
I’ve mentioned my concerns to other people who come into contact with Pixie. Their assurances that “he’s not that bad” do little to ease my worries. Either they’re wrong and it is that bad or I – the very person who’s meant to know him best – can’t understand him. I’ve been told that there are reasons for his stutter to present worse in front of parents but even that does little to alleviate the worry – parenthood is one long mass of guilt and worry, isn’t it?
Although Pixie is only just vaguely becoming aware that he has a stutter (he’s very recently started to stop himself in the middle of sentences and drift off for a moment before starting afresh), he’s becoming increasingly aware and frustrated by people’s inability to understand him. Worse, he’s started to realise when people are pretending to understand and he’s been in tears several times because of it. Having to translate what he’s saying to people feels like I’m undermining him and removing his voice, yet if I don’t then he doesn’t get to say what he wants to say.
I’ve recently completed the first stage of speech therapy, which is parent-only group sessions aimed at giving caregivers the techniques necessary to assist the stutterer in talking. The key points are to limit questions and only ask necessary ones (which seems counterintuitive when your child is still learning to talk!); make fewer demands on their speech (no more “tell daddy what you did at nursery today!”); slow your own speech down to model a better speech pattern; remove environmental distractions so speech can be concentrated on; remove any competition in speech so they’re not fighting to be heard in family life.
Some of what we’ve been asked to do feels very much as though a step back is being taken – simplifying language seems wrong when as a parent your job is to help teach your child an expansive and diverse vocabulary. We worried that we’d never get a proper conversation out of Pixie again if we didn’t ask him questions, but surprisingly giving him space to talk (or not, as he prefers) has probably resulted in better conversation because he’s telling us what he wants us to know rather than what we’re asking him to tell us. Remembering that it’s ok for children not to want to talk all the time, and that we as adults don’t need to know the ins and outs of their day away from us. After three group sessions the feeling that we’re going backwards has started to abate and we feel as though we’re better equipped to handle Pixie's problem. Changing the way we speak is hard, and we often find ourselves stalling halfway through a sentence as we realise we’re about to end it with a question. But as Pixie is learning to get through the stutter, we’re also learning how to best assist him.
The next stage in his therapy is an assessment through play, which is scheduled for a couple of weeks’ time. From there we’ll know exactly what problems we’re dealing with and the speech therapist will be able to review his progress over time. With any luck Pixie will be one of the children who outgrow their stutter – only 1% of children carry it through into adulthood. If he’s not then I’m hopeful that an early intervention will give him and us the tools to adapt in the wider world.
Anyway, I've just sent it across and it's here:
Pixie was always a physically advanced baby and toddler, so in a sense I was expecting him to be a slower talker (I’d heard the adage ‘a baby’s a walker or a talker but not both’!), so when his peers picked up words slightly faster than him I wasn’t bothered and assumed he’d get there in his own time.
Just before Christmas 2011 (when he was two and a half) his dad and I started to notice that Pixie was stuttering. At that point he was having a huge burst of vocabulary so we put it down to his mouth catching up with his brain and didn’t really think much more about it. It happened again, and again, and in about February we realised that what he was doing was above and beyond ‘normal’ childhood development and in the realms of having a speech problem.
His stutter has presented perfectly typically. He’s 3 (most stutters present between 3-5 years), he’s male (approximately 3/5 stutterers are male), he has parents with slight speech issues (there appears to be a familial link between stutterers, although the exact cause is unknown) and he’s had a great deal of stressful change in a short period of time (new sibling and a change of childcare provider) – I’m not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! Unfortunately knowing that he’s ‘typical’ hasn’t assuaged the sadness I feel watching him struggle to get his words out.
I’ve mentioned my concerns to other people who come into contact with Pixie. Their assurances that “he’s not that bad” do little to ease my worries. Either they’re wrong and it is that bad or I – the very person who’s meant to know him best – can’t understand him. I’ve been told that there are reasons for his stutter to present worse in front of parents but even that does little to alleviate the worry – parenthood is one long mass of guilt and worry, isn’t it?
Although Pixie is only just vaguely becoming aware that he has a stutter (he’s very recently started to stop himself in the middle of sentences and drift off for a moment before starting afresh), he’s becoming increasingly aware and frustrated by people’s inability to understand him. Worse, he’s started to realise when people are pretending to understand and he’s been in tears several times because of it. Having to translate what he’s saying to people feels like I’m undermining him and removing his voice, yet if I don’t then he doesn’t get to say what he wants to say.
I’ve recently completed the first stage of speech therapy, which is parent-only group sessions aimed at giving caregivers the techniques necessary to assist the stutterer in talking. The key points are to limit questions and only ask necessary ones (which seems counterintuitive when your child is still learning to talk!); make fewer demands on their speech (no more “tell daddy what you did at nursery today!”); slow your own speech down to model a better speech pattern; remove environmental distractions so speech can be concentrated on; remove any competition in speech so they’re not fighting to be heard in family life.
Some of what we’ve been asked to do feels very much as though a step back is being taken – simplifying language seems wrong when as a parent your job is to help teach your child an expansive and diverse vocabulary. We worried that we’d never get a proper conversation out of Pixie again if we didn’t ask him questions, but surprisingly giving him space to talk (or not, as he prefers) has probably resulted in better conversation because he’s telling us what he wants us to know rather than what we’re asking him to tell us. Remembering that it’s ok for children not to want to talk all the time, and that we as adults don’t need to know the ins and outs of their day away from us. After three group sessions the feeling that we’re going backwards has started to abate and we feel as though we’re better equipped to handle Pixie's problem. Changing the way we speak is hard, and we often find ourselves stalling halfway through a sentence as we realise we’re about to end it with a question. But as Pixie is learning to get through the stutter, we’re also learning how to best assist him.
The next stage in his therapy is an assessment through play, which is scheduled for a couple of weeks’ time. From there we’ll know exactly what problems we’re dealing with and the speech therapist will be able to review his progress over time. With any luck Pixie will be one of the children who outgrow their stutter – only 1% of children carry it through into adulthood. If he’s not then I’m hopeful that an early intervention will give him and us the tools to adapt in the wider world.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Can't Do Carrots
I'm working on the next speech post (I am, I am, honest! Definitely not watching repeats of The Bill) but there's been an interesting development on the salicylate front.
Yesterday Pix had one and a half carrot batons. I mentioned in my last post that he's not a fan of low salicylate vegetables (although I've had some good ideas to try out for that, which is awesome, thanks to folks for that. Apart from Katherine who suggested he try kale, MY MOST HATED VEGETABLE EVER) so we figured just to get some nutrients in him we'd let him have a little bit of carrot, which has medium levels of salicylic acid in which we thought would be ok in moderation. Well. Today his eyes have become more and more red underneath and itchy; his face and arm skin has been itching him all day; his cough has got more and more frequent during the course of the day and his stutter has been awful.
The fact that they've all got worse together confirms (in my opinion) that they're all related. It would be far too much of a coincidence for them to completely autonomously of each other get bad over the course of the same day. Surely? But, it has been a better weathered day today so it's possible it may be a pollen allergy, I suppose. Do pollen allergies cause stutters? Or maybe something else. But possibly for the first time on this venture I feel slightly confident that I'm not displaying vast Münchhausen by proxy symptoms and I am barking up the right tree.
Yesterday Pix had one and a half carrot batons. I mentioned in my last post that he's not a fan of low salicylate vegetables (although I've had some good ideas to try out for that, which is awesome, thanks to folks for that. Apart from Katherine who suggested he try kale, MY MOST HATED VEGETABLE EVER) so we figured just to get some nutrients in him we'd let him have a little bit of carrot, which has medium levels of salicylic acid in which we thought would be ok in moderation. Well. Today his eyes have become more and more red underneath and itchy; his face and arm skin has been itching him all day; his cough has got more and more frequent during the course of the day and his stutter has been awful.
The fact that they've all got worse together confirms (in my opinion) that they're all related. It would be far too much of a coincidence for them to completely autonomously of each other get bad over the course of the same day. Surely? But, it has been a better weathered day today so it's possible it may be a pollen allergy, I suppose. Do pollen allergies cause stutters? Or maybe something else. But possibly for the first time on this venture I feel slightly confident that I'm not displaying vast Münchhausen by proxy symptoms and I am barking up the right tree.
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Vegemite Vege-won't
We're coming to the end of day five on a lower salicylate diet for Pixie and I have to say it's not been as soul crushingly hard as I was expecting. We've been super pleased with his nursery as the P's daddy called them to let them know what we were up to, expecting to be asked to take in a pack up for Pix, but they've accommodated us entirely. The only problems we're finding are that he now has a very limited diet, especially in the fruit and veg department. Luckily he likes bananas, pears and golden delicious apples so he eats two of those a day. Unfortunately all the low salicylate veg are ones he doesn't like, like cabbage and peas. Bummer for him. I'm trying to get him to eat them but it's hard going - if anyone has any bright ideas on how to get kids to eat certain vegetables that'd be handy! The other problem is the range of food he can have while we're out. Partly this is because I'm being particularly cautious while I'm getting to grips with the diet, but partly there's plain crisps and, er, that's about it. He's still being so good about it all.
His symptoms may have seen a very, very mild improvement. It's hard to say with a lot of them as they wax and wane anyway, but his eyes are less red and angry looking; I've not heard him cough much in the last day or two; there's no eczema patches; I've not heard much whining about being huuuuuuuuuuuungrrrrrrrrrrrrrry; I've not noticed him bash his head a million times. His speech is going through a relatively 'good' patch at the minute but he's definitely still stammering, although the coherence of his words is quite good. So yeah, there's certainly not been a decline since we started this and if I squint a bit there may even be improvements!
His symptoms may have seen a very, very mild improvement. It's hard to say with a lot of them as they wax and wane anyway, but his eyes are less red and angry looking; I've not heard him cough much in the last day or two; there's no eczema patches; I've not heard much whining about being huuuuuuuuuuuungrrrrrrrrrrrrrry; I've not noticed him bash his head a million times. His speech is going through a relatively 'good' patch at the minute but he's definitely still stammering, although the coherence of his words is quite good. So yeah, there's certainly not been a decline since we started this and if I squint a bit there may even be improvements!
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Those Silly Salicylates
I mentioned in my last post that one of the things I was considering was a salicylate intolerance in Pixie. The list of symptoms associated with it are varied and numerous and a salicylate free diet is mooted by some to have positive affects on people with ADHD.
There are a number of things on the list that Pixie has. Obviously it may well be that he just 'happens' to have a multitude of unrelated, low-level health issues but equally there may be an all-encompassing reason for them. Having fibromyalgia myself, I know that a myriad of seemingly unrelated issues can (eventually!) be tracked back to an umbrella condition. With that in mind, we decided that cutting down on salicylates certainly wouldn't hurt.
The list of symptoms we're concerned about may be a mix of unrelated issues and the fact that Pixie is, y'know, three, , so I thought I'd track his progress here. The symptoms we think are related are these:
There are a number of things on the list that Pixie has. Obviously it may well be that he just 'happens' to have a multitude of unrelated, low-level health issues but equally there may be an all-encompassing reason for them. Having fibromyalgia myself, I know that a myriad of seemingly unrelated issues can (eventually!) be tracked back to an umbrella condition. With that in mind, we decided that cutting down on salicylates certainly wouldn't hurt.
The list of symptoms we're concerned about may be a mix of unrelated issues and the fact that Pixie is, y'know, three, , so I thought I'd track his progress here. The symptoms we think are related are these:
- eczema (mild, but we can never quite get rid of it)
- persistent cough
- slightly darker and slightly paler patches on his forearms, as though the skin pigmentation is going awry
- itchy, dry skin around his eyes, with red circles round them, that cream doesn't seem to get rid of
- constant hunger
- accident prone (honestly, I'm surprised he doesn't have brain damage by now, the amount of times he's walked into the same pieces of furniture!)
- hearing without comprehension
- slurred speech
- stammering
Obviously if the salicylate intolerance isn't the cause then the symptoms won't get better over time. However, even if he is intolerant I'm expecting the symptoms to wax and wane before going completely, especially while we get to grips with what is and isn't 'acceptable' under the new regime. So I'm going to track the progress here.
We're currently at the end of day two and he's being surprisingly agreeable about the entire situation. He's started asking if he's allowed to have something before he eats it (which is brilliant!). The worst part is limiting his fruit and veg as he's a big fruit fan and we obviously want to keep him having a fresh, healthy diet! Because he goes to nursery for 3 half days a week he has 6 meals a week outside the home. I don't want to mess about with what he eats there on what's unsubstantiated theory at the moment so we're not going to ask the nursery to alter his food in any way yet. However, we'll keep an eye on any reactions he has on those days and take steps if necessary. I'm slightly concerned about the website I linked to earlier saying that caution needs to be exercised on reintroducing salicylates as anaphylactic shock may occur....I don't think that they'll be removed so completely (we're not currently changing his toiletries, for example) that him eating 'normally' at nursery will result in that though! Um, if anyone thinks they know different please get in touch before Tuesday morning!
I wasn't expecting to see any results this quickly but what is a little bit galling is that this afternoon his eyes got really bad and red again and his behaviour deteriorated pretty quickly. How much of this is because we slipped up somewhere and how much is because the weekend was spent with his grandparents having attention lavished on him I don't know, but there were definitely tears before bedtime!
Tomorrow is another day, and one that we'll hopefully start to see signs of change.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Talk the Talk
Yesterday was quite a tear-filled day for me. The morning saw Pixie's first dysfluency speech therapy session (although it was parent only so he was off living it up with a friend!).
I feel horrendously sad for him and guilty. I honestly thought his affected speech was a short-lived developmental phase but being there made me realise that his speech patterns are quite a bit more serious than I thought. As he's not been formally assessed yet I can only give my lay opinion but I believe he has a stammer (or stutter if you're from the US) and cluttered speech.
The stammer has presented perfectly typically. He's 3, he's a boy, he has parents with speech issues (his dad had a stammer, I get what I call speech dyslexia (although I'm sure there's an official name!) from my fibromyalgia), he's had a great deal of stressful change in a short period. I'm not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! According to the Speech Disorder website there are three types of stammer:
As well as the stammer, I believe he has cluttering, which Wikipedia defines as a:
My homework following the session is to see when Pixie's speech is at its most fluent, so we can use that state as a basis to improve the bad times. I think I'm the person least able to do this because I genuinely don't hear a lot of the issues because I'm so used to them. We're visiting my parents this weekend so hopefully they'll be able to help out.
I'm a little ashamed to say I cried in the session. Realising that my little baby needs help was honestly devastating. I'm even more ashamed to say I cried when a friend asked me how it had gone! We've only been friends for a couple of weeks so I don't think she was expecting tears over cake!
Something I'm finding hard to admit and even harder to articulate is the extra worry I have. There's something inside me that thinks the speech problems may be part of something bigger, more worrying. Over the last few months there have been times when I've thought 'you're just not right'. I can't tell you what, and I hope it's just an over active imagination, but I've been spending a lot of time reading up about ADD and salicylate sensitivity. More on those another day as Poppy has just woken up from her (very short!) nap.
I feel horrendously sad for him and guilty. I honestly thought his affected speech was a short-lived developmental phase but being there made me realise that his speech patterns are quite a bit more serious than I thought. As he's not been formally assessed yet I can only give my lay opinion but I believe he has a stammer (or stutter if you're from the US) and cluttered speech.
The stammer has presented perfectly typically. He's 3, he's a boy, he has parents with speech issues (his dad had a stammer, I get what I call speech dyslexia (although I'm sure there's an official name!) from my fibromyalgia), he's had a great deal of stressful change in a short period. I'm not sure he could be more of a classic presentation! According to the Speech Disorder website there are three types of stammer:
There are three main types of stammers that exist and which keep individuals from speaking most efficiently. One type of stammering occurs when specific sounds are repeated, such as the “s”. This often makes a word such as “sweet” be pronounced as “s-s-s-sweet”.Another type of stammering occurs when a specific sound is prolonged before the rest of the word is pronounced, such as “sssssssweet”. The third type of stammering occurs when some speech is blocked so that there is a short period of silence in the middle of a word, such as “s……weet”.Pixie certainly does the first two, although he also repeats the first word or syllable as well as the sound. So far he hasn't shown any sign of 'blocking'. He also repeats sounds or words in the middle of sentences, although the speech therapist believes that because of his age he's treating them as two separate sentences. As well as those he adds filler sounds like 'um' and a sort of tut. Again this is common, apparently, as his brain realises that making those noises gives him a bit of time to get his mouth round what he's actually saying. Thankfully he hasn't noticed yet that he has a stammer.
As well as the stammer, I believe he has cluttering, which Wikipedia defines as a:
communication disorder characterized by speech that is difficult for listeners to understand due to rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax or grammar, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence.He can have an entire conversation with me where I can only make out a word or two of what he says. Although many websites have said that clutterers don't have any awareness of their dysfluent speech, Pixie has started to notice that people don't understand him. More upsetting, he's noticed that people are pretending to understand him. We've all done it to children who are learning to talk, replied to an unintelligible babble with "Oh yes, right! That's it, yes!" which is all well and good until the child is old enough to come crying to me because the person he's talking to isn't talking back.
My homework following the session is to see when Pixie's speech is at its most fluent, so we can use that state as a basis to improve the bad times. I think I'm the person least able to do this because I genuinely don't hear a lot of the issues because I'm so used to them. We're visiting my parents this weekend so hopefully they'll be able to help out.
I'm a little ashamed to say I cried in the session. Realising that my little baby needs help was honestly devastating. I'm even more ashamed to say I cried when a friend asked me how it had gone! We've only been friends for a couple of weeks so I don't think she was expecting tears over cake!
Something I'm finding hard to admit and even harder to articulate is the extra worry I have. There's something inside me that thinks the speech problems may be part of something bigger, more worrying. Over the last few months there have been times when I've thought 'you're just not right'. I can't tell you what, and I hope it's just an over active imagination, but I've been spending a lot of time reading up about ADD and salicylate sensitivity. More on those another day as Poppy has just woken up from her (very short!) nap.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
When enough is enough is enough
I haven't posted for a while. Mostly because there's only so many times you can say 'still not sleeping'. But she's not. Every day her nightly sleeping patterns get worse, and worse, and worse. I'd say they couldn't get any worse, but I'm pretty sure she'd find a way, just to spite me.
I sent a text earlier saying 'I can't do this, I've had enough.' but what choice do I have? This is it until she changes. If she changes. What I wouldn't do to go out on the piss for a night. Have a full night's sleep. Go to the loo without juggling baby, pre-schooler and dog. Christ, even go to a full day of back-to-back meetings at work! I'm ashamed to admit I've fleetingly pondered returning to work early just so I can catch a break. It's relentless and I'm close to my wit's end which is crossing over into every other aspect of my life too. I'm >< close to deleting all my internet accounts, locking the door, and not moving for the next year.
If anyone says 'this too shall pass' I'm going tor each through your internet and rip your teeth out. Just so you know.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Isn't It Meant To Get Easier?
Life is meant to get easier with a baby as they get older, according to the hordes of moms who have been there and done that.
Why is it in this household things are getting harder?
Probably the biggest cause of this is the fact Pops has stopped sleeping 12 hours a night with only one quick feed after about 10 hours, to waking every hour or two every night. I'm pretty sure you're meant to get more sleep as they get older rather than less.
But, to be fair, the nightly wake ups don't impact on the washing that seems to multiply as soon as you look at it (where do people hang their washing to dry? It's ridiculous!); the kitchen that's less a bombsite and more an explosion in a shit factory; the piles of stuff everywhere... Where Pixie is now old enough to sit and watch TV (*clutches pearls*) on his own, or play at 'I'm Fireman Sam and I'm putting out fires!', Pops is very much like her brother was and doesn't like being left to her own devices, doesn't like toys and isn't very impressed if you try and play with her. All of which mean it's pretty difficult to pop off and get things done. More was done when she was tiny and in a sling! Also, since the multiple chicken pox fiasco, we've relied on her dummy far too much (as in - every minute she's awake, pretty much) which is causing its own problems.
Things need to change and we need to get back to where we were but at this moment in time I don't really know where to start.
This post brought to you by one stream of consciousness and 18 dummy replacements.
Why is it in this household things are getting harder?
Probably the biggest cause of this is the fact Pops has stopped sleeping 12 hours a night with only one quick feed after about 10 hours, to waking every hour or two every night. I'm pretty sure you're meant to get more sleep as they get older rather than less.
But, to be fair, the nightly wake ups don't impact on the washing that seems to multiply as soon as you look at it (where do people hang their washing to dry? It's ridiculous!); the kitchen that's less a bombsite and more an explosion in a shit factory; the piles of stuff everywhere... Where Pixie is now old enough to sit and watch TV (*clutches pearls*) on his own, or play at 'I'm Fireman Sam and I'm putting out fires!', Pops is very much like her brother was and doesn't like being left to her own devices, doesn't like toys and isn't very impressed if you try and play with her. All of which mean it's pretty difficult to pop off and get things done. More was done when she was tiny and in a sling! Also, since the multiple chicken pox fiasco, we've relied on her dummy far too much (as in - every minute she's awake, pretty much) which is causing its own problems.
Things need to change and we need to get back to where we were but at this moment in time I don't really know where to start.
This post brought to you by one stream of consciousness and 18 dummy replacements.
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