My main issue, along with the fact she’s basically throwing this party for herself. Though I will be entertained when she has a meltdown over my family all declining the invite to go to the Florida game, and me telling her I’d rather be going too.
Somewhere I made a prediction on the date I would officially be joining. I think it was in the hurricane thread a few years ago when she was upset I didn’t buy flights out of town for her whole family.
Our 6 month old daughter has already had three double ear infections, so our pediatrician referred us to get an ear tube evaluation. We have a few friends that work at Children's Hospital and they all recommended the same ENT doctor as the best one there. We had a 745am appt at the this morning for this guy to look at her ears. His recommendation was tubes. After we told him that we were on board with them he said..."You know...I've got time....and she's small enough...we can do it right now if you guys can stomach her insanely crying for about 8 minutes." We agreed to it...so, she didn't have to be put under. She had tubes in her ears by 845 am. Not gonna lie...it was pretty brutal to see her go from wrapped up smiling at nurses to extreme pain and scared. Pretty sure it was the first time I've ever seen actual tears from her eyes. But, it's done and he said at most she will take some Tylenol today. I have no idea how much we would have been billed after insurance, but afterwards he said doing it that way saved about $5K. Pretty amazing.
Wow didn't know they could do it with out going under. Little Bishop got tubes about 3 months ago after having ear infections for about 6 months straight. Been great ever since.
Me neither. He said it can't be done that way when they are much bigger, because they are too strong of wigglers at that point. With her being like 14lbs, they wrapped her up and held her still easily. Probably having an extremely good doctor was part of the willingness to do it as well.
My 13 year old son broke his radius Wednesday, the day before junior high football practice started. We get like 20 nice days in Ohio a year and I’m spending this one inside while he gets some rest so he can sit through practice for a few weeks until the doctor ok’s football again. Our original plan was to hit the driving range today, drive the go cart around and swim, now we’re not doing shit.
Damn! That’s tough. Tubes is the right call. Both our kids got them at 1. Life got so much easier and they were so much happier after.
Yep my daughter is now over 2 and got tubes back in March, mostly because I was worried about her hearing (had several ear infections too). No ear infections since then.
That doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience but as others have said it’s the best thing that you can do. Life changing for us with our little guy.
Took the little guy hiking yesterday morning. He loved it. Was just giggling and oohing and awwing for 2.5 hours. Finished and he was as tired as we were. Spoiler
I'm on day 4 of single dad duty while Mrs. Scorpio is off gallivanting in Texas eating great BBQ, floating down rivers and going to theme parks for "work." Oh, and I also gave up drinking for a month (today is day 12). I'm currently questioning my decisions in life.
I do a lot of obstacle course races, spartan, savage, etc, and my 5 year old is wanting to train with me. She went up and over the inverted ladder almost all by herself yesterday. She loves watching ninja warrior and other obstacle shows. Can’t wait to sign her up for her first kids one in a few years when she’s old enough.
Nice! 1/3 is signing up for running club at her elementary school and is doing a 10U triathlon in a few weeks.
jealous of you guys. our 8 month old has been battling a cold and we finally took him in and confirmed another ear infection. This is #3 i think, so wife asked about getting a referral to go to ENT for tubes. Doc said they would just turn us away since it's august (not high season for ear infections) and he has 2-3 more months before sick season to grow. It's frustrating cause our 2.5 year old battled this and we just dealt with it and he never got them and it was a pain in the ass. Now we are getting turned away because we want to be proactive instead of reactive and wait on more ear infections when ENT schedules are all booked up. We are going to get a 2nd opinion from our friend pediatrician and see what she thinks. May be moving our business to her, our pediatrician is AWESOME but his office is a shit show and scheduling anything there is like pulling teeth. It's like you're putting everyone out of their norm to get anything done and all his ladies in the front are bitches.
Also since its not "Sick Season" and the child is sick shouldn't that raise some flags. Makes no sense at all.
Yeah, our ENT Doctor was basically like "Alright...she's six months old and she's had three ear infections already. She's in day care and we aren't into flu season yet. You can hope she doesn't get anymore, but the odds are stacked very much against that. I would recommend tubes". Sounds the opposite of above.
Ok so difficult topic and I’m not really sure what to do about it. For starters my wife is a former K teacher in public schools for 8 years. She’s seen and taught hundreds of children at all levels of learning in multiple varying socioeconomic schools. I say that to just give some background as she has tested for students entering K a lot and has a decent grasp on expected levels of learning and growth coming from the home to the school. She’s also spent countless hours with autistic children in her classroom so she knows what it looks like. My brother and his wife had a daughter two-ish months before we had our son and she’s always exhibited some traits and movements that I found odd but I’m an engineer and have no basis for anything health/medical/etc outside of google and webmd. She will be 1 later this month and while we live in the same town we don’t see each other all that often because of work schedules, bedtimes, and different friend groups. They do probably have a play date once every other week. With all that said, we went over for dinner at my parents over the weekend and the little idiosyncrasies most everyone has found cute or silly started to rub my wife the wrong way. She sits and randomly flaps her arms, sits and spins in circles, head bangs in a hard rocking manner in her high chair and activity center, and has a really bad texture aversion with foods. It became more clear as my 9 month old was raking spaghetti into his mouth and she wasn’t having anything to do with it. She will have some puffs, but even struggles with those and other solids. She gets a crap ton of purées and formula still, but she’s going to be coming off of formula soon. My wife started doing some further research and came up with a term called stimming which is basically a self stimulation behavior usually involving repetitive motions or sounds. Basically we both think it’s somewhat likely she might be showing early signs of autism but are definitely not sure. She does maintain eye contact when you talk to her and she does know and recognize and listen to her name which are other signs as well. Basically I’m not sure how to have that conversation with them, especially if it ends up not being the case and not a big deal. At the same time though, if an early diagnosis could help them begin to do things to maybe help her deal with it sooner rather than later, I feel like I would want to know if the roles were reversed. My brother’s wife also has a brother who is a doctor so my wife is a little surprised it hasn’t come up from him or he hasn’t thought her behavior was off. Either way, she’s surprised that she’s seemingly the only person who has noticed something might be off. I’m not sure what to do, any advice, especially from the medically inclined members?
That's a tough one. Personally I would hold off for a bit. Sounds like you don't have enough information to make that jump yet, I just don't know if there is anyone to broach that subject without some level of conflict. I'm pretty easy going and level headed but if someone came to me to tell me they think my kid is displaying autistic traits, even with all the best intentions in the world, I think I would still go into full defense mode. With all the info you gave I think I would just keep looking for signs and try to build a better case for why you think that is something they need to look into.
Honestly it really depends on your relationship with your brother and his wife. If you're not 100% sure I wouldn't bring it up. And neither of you are trained experts so I'd be careful. Also your brother's BIL could also not be involved in pediatrics at all. Pediatrics and childhood development is so different from adult medicine I think a lot of docs forget what they learn in med school if they aren't actively practicing it. Further, as a doctor the BIL might feel it is unethical and/or unprofessional to bring up those types of concerns if he just has occasional interactions with the kid. At the most I bet he'd suggest they talk to their doctor/pediatrician.
Thanks for the reply. That was my initial thought as well. I will say I am struggling with the idea of there being help available now though that could improve her situation moving forward. Plus if there is an actual diagnosis in the future, I fear I will have to play dumb because at that point they might be pissed we didn’t say something if we could have. It’s just a tough spot.
Yeah great points on the ethical part. He probably sees her once every 2-3 months as they live out of town. I’m actually upset their pediatrician (same group as our son but different doctor) hasn’t said anything. It could be she doesn’t exhibit those things in a 15min visit though.
Yea, I doubt there is anyway to suggest anything to the parents at this point other than basically asking if they have /are taking the child for their well-child checks with a good pediatrician who you just have to trust are doing what they should to check for the signs A quick Google tells me doctors are looking for signs at 18 to 24 months, so maybe what you are seeing now is just something the child will grow out of by then
That also seems very very early to worry about autism, which I thought was mostly diagnosed once they were well into toddler age. A 1 year old being weird about food and odd could be a number of different things, our daughter started getting picky around 1 and she's been annoyingly picky about textures it seems (I am too and have always been). I'd wait at least another year before really being concerned imo. Edit: Not to shit on pediatricians because they're mostly awesome, but you kind of have to push them with questions because a 15 minute checkup isn't enough. We wouldn't have gotten tubes for our daughter if we didn't ask a bunch of questions about speech delay which turned into a referral for a hearing test (showed fluid in her middle ear which dampens sound).
Very hard subject. Have you mentioned it to another family member? Grand Parents, maybe? I imagine your Brother and SIL might have a idea but don't want to say it or hear it. Guessing she is not in Daycare. Maybe the Pediatrician will pickup on some things at her 1 year appointment.
Also, not to hijack the convo, but given the food/textures thing has anyone else had to deal with their new toddler suddenly being adverse to eating any non-solid food? Just a couple of months ago she was eating apple sauce, oatmeal, and sometimes yogurt with a spoon, now I can't even get her to try it. She turned 2 at the end of May and has started to have worse tantrums and I know this is the age where kids can get really picky with their food. She'll eat a lot of other things, including some vegetables, fine so we switch it up, but this really limits what I can give her at breakfast that isn't constipating.
So I’ve thought about telling my parents and letting them kind of ask the questions and drive the conversation because they see her often. They keep her one day a week and she’s kept by a nanny (who keeps another child) the other 4 days. Yeah she goes for her one year in about 2 weeks. Hopefully that sparks conversation.
My 19 month old eating habits are all over the place. Sometimes he want's nothing to do with something I know he devoured 2 weeks ago. I just give him options and see whats happens. Also Tantrums....He can be a real Turd sometimes.
Dropped my son off at his first day of daycare The worrying of having someone else take care of your kid is real
Yeah she'll change every week or so, but not wanting to eat non-solid food out of bowl has been going on too long to think it's normal boredom.
Right and I agree about it being early. Yeah our pediatrician spends at least 30 minutes with us. It forces us to wait more in the waiting room, but we really appreciate the time and effort he takes. When I say a texture aversion it’s more of an aversion to everything that isn’t purée or formula or the occasional puff. Hoping it’s a no-never-mind, just struggling with what to do. Thanks everyone for the insight.
My 4 yo’s eating habits suck. There’s no method to when or what he eats but he loves and drinks more whole milk than anyone I’ve ever seen so we don’t force the issue.
My fiancee works with the autistic and I sent her this post. She said "definitely some red flags to autism. Just because she makes good eye contact does not disqualify her from being autistic." Best of luck.
This is my second day back after a weeklong family vacation with 9 kids under 6, including 2 of mine. Wow that was exhausting.
Thanks. Does she recommend any action? Or is it basically there’s some red flags but not much you can do at this point to help her.
Your experience sounds similar to ours. We got referred to an ENT for a tubes consultation. Prior to meeting with the doctor (same day) we met with an audiologist and she looked in his ears and his history. Instantly said he needs tubes and it’s just a formality with the doctor. We then returned to the waiting room before the ENT meeting. I ended having to leave for a work meeting so my wife was alone with JC jr. An hour later my phone rings and it’s my wife...she’s crying because the ENT said he wouldn’t do tubes. His rationale was that he only had “four” confirmed ear infections. He said he refuses tubes until they have had five. My wife basically told him to get the hell out of the room....among other things. It takes a lot for my wife to get fired up. We were obviously devastated so we called the audiologist. She couldn’t believe it....referred us to an ENT that has a six month waiting list. Got us an appointment two days later with him. He took one look in his ears and said yep he needs tubes. Two weeks later he performed the procedure and our life has been significantly better since. Long story short....definitely get another opinion. I don’t understand how a doctor could tell you something like that. Fuck em.
The way you explain it sounds like very common autistic traits (my wife works with these kids all the time). But, having been in a similar situation, tread very very lightly. It’s not easy, even if the sibling is very educated on child development. Grandparents can be a good way to handle it but it can also be a big source of conflict and poison relationships. There’s just no easy way to talk about it. Early identification and treatment makes a huge difference but that conversation is a field of land mines.
If a kid is verified they can get free treatment through the school even at that age. The kid would need to be assessed by a doc/school psychologist first and that is initiated by the parents, generally.
When we took our daughter in for a follow up we asked about if we have a third child how to speed the path to tubes (since the first 2 got them essentially on their first birthday). She said we could call and get a consultation. We didn’t need a referral. It can’t hurt to call because it’s a lot harder to get a consultation in 3 months.
She didn't say anything else, but she'd probably recommend a behavioral evaluation because, like Bo Pelinis said, early identification can make a huge difference in the child's social development.