Drivig myself crazy

Post Reply New Topic

now that my baby is nearing a year, I am watching him like a hawk, wondering if everything he does or doesn't do points to autism. I am more worried about severe non verbal autism then anything else. My oldest is HF Aspergers,, so far my youngest is developing completely different. The baby already has 2 words his first word the end of 10 months, then a few weeks later another word, he crawled on time, he LOVED tummy time, he walks already, LOVES to hug. Why I worry? he can get sucked into tv. Sometimes I have to call him a few times before he looks at me ESPECIALLY when he is working something out or if the TV is on. He is a biter, my oldest was a biter, my middle wasn't and she is NT. My oldest got sucked into tv and wouldn't respond to his name all the time. When the baby is excited he flaps his arms, my oldest used to flap his arms when he jumped, and to this day will flap when jumping. Do all babies flap when excited?

I KNOW I am looking too deep into things, their development is completely different. but I cant help but worry, I worry that he will lose the words, that he will regress. UGH when does a moms job ever stop worrying!

those of you with older AS kids, and younger siblings, did you worry all the time? I love my baby no matter what, just want to be on top of things. if he needs intervention I want to get it as soon as possible. I will bring some of this up at his 1 year visit but I am certain the DR will think I am nuts...lol

I've had some concerns with one of the twins (4 years younger than DS). When she was 1 something about the intensity when she would cry in her crib sounded just like DS. She's now 4, and has a lot of those moments of rigidity -- for instance, when she insisted on getting out of a different door of the car than usual and I accommodated, and then as we're walking into preschool she cried and demanded to go back to the car so she can get out of her USUAL door, and carried on about it for 10-15 minutes. And today she got her first "incident report" from preschool because teachers are getting tired of dealing with similar things (she refused to come out of some bushes on the playground, and then wouldn't talk to the teacher about it). DS's troubles really started ramping up in the 4 yo class in preschool, so I'm praying this is not "here we go again."

But I have to say I've never been particularly worried about regressive autism. From 12-24 months I was able to just look at it as, "good, she ticked off that milestone" as things came up. There was a short-lived period (about 2 weeks) where she was lining up toys, but as soon as I started documenting it with photos she stopped. She was right on the borderline on the M-CHAT at one point, but a few months later made up the difference. Both girls flapped when excited.

My older has AS, my younger is NT. I worried a lot but that's because I worry. The younger one was always just very neurotypical, eager to join a group of children, and it was the lack of interest in playing with other children that seemed to me to really stand out about the older one.

Please don't worry about flapping at this age, though. My NT child did too.

It's really hard not to worry a lot once you've had reason to. And a child even very high functioning with AS makes life seem more uncertain. Trust your judgment about this though. You've no reason not to!

The odds are about 1/100 to have a kid on the spectrum (not necessarily non-verbal-just on the spectrum somewhere), if you already have a kid with an ASD, they go up to about 1/10. So that's definitely not insignificant. Then again, the things you describe all seem typical. I'm sure you already have a guide to normal infant development, so you can check for milestones. He may meet those milestones and still wind up with regressive autism that hits at age 3. Still, all signs seem to point to no problems. Given that there are no visible problems, there's really nothing you can do that would make any difference for him.

Being a nervous wreck around him may cause some problems though (not ASD, more like anxiety / attachment issues), so you're better off just leaving this in the category of things that may happen, but you can't change. Like a lethal car accident; you take precautions like wearing a seat belt and driving safely, but even then it can happen and it's out of your control, so there's no use worrying about it (because worrying won't make you safer). You're already taking the precautions that you need to be taking. So the best thing to do is to feel that anxiety wash over you, sit with it for a second, and remind yourself that it is too soon to know for sure, or to do anything about it...then enjoy your baby.

Emile is right about looking for the presence of normal development as reassuring, rather than worrying about anything unusual. Did your older regress, is this something you've seen in your family?

no, my oldest son has mixed development. Some stuff was normal, some not. My oldest could be so engaging and with it, he could also tune you out.

I do have a lot of autism in my family, I have 3 nieces and one nephew and my own son on the spectrum. POSSIBLY more but undiagnosed and HF enough to slip by.

I think there is more normal stuff the baby does then not, but that nagging feeling is lingering with me. I cant deny it, I will just be observant and if I notice more stuff I will tae action.

Some cute stuff the baby does, I babysit another baby about the same age, when he comes over my son gets so excited to see him, he smiles and him and has recently taken to hugging him. They babble to each other, my baby LOVES to play with his brother and sister. He gets so excited and chases them around. he also will look at me smiling when he is about to do something he knows he shouldn't.

ALSO, when he was an infant, he had rapid head growth. Now, he is a HUGE baby, he wore 12 months when he was only a few months old, was above the 100% ile on the charts, now the high 90%ile for weight and height, but back then, his head had rapid growth, that jumped %iles. Drs were concerned and he had a CAT scan, all looked fine no pathological reason for the growth. When I looked that up, I found a lot of articles that correlated with normal baby development that lead to autism somewhere by age 2. Babies with rapid head growth that jump percentiles have been found to appear typically developing until around age 2 where they then start to show signs of autism, so that is in my head as well.

Neither of my kids developed in a typical way, so I can't really speak to that part of your concerns, but what I can say is that I have had friends who had their babies evaluated by early intervention just to get an outsider's opinion.

My personal opinion is that you probably can't do much about worrying. I think about it this way, after I had a pregnancy loss, there was really no way of having a stress-free pregnancy after that. While molar pregnancies may not even be something that most women are even aware of, once it's happened, you can't but the knowledge back in the bag. You become aware of things you would never be aware of if you hadn't experienced it.

I think the trick is to try to keep your "worrying" in check and use it to be proactive. My son was 7 before he was diagnosed and lived through a number of years of hell because he was my oldest and I simply didn't know any better. If I ever would have had a third child and they needed help, I feel 100% confident that I would have gotten him/her the help that they needed as soon as they needed it because I would have recognized the issue. I also think that I would have avoided many "mistakes" that I made with my son because I didn't know any better. My experience has made me better.

Worrying will not prevent your newest baby from having issues. It also won't make him have issues. He has the neurology he has. Use the knowledge you have gained and be confident in your assessment of the situation, knowing that no matter what, you will be able to handle whatever happens. If your gut really tells you something is up, get him evaluated. If the deep part of your gut tells you everything is OK, just trust it and keep a watchful eye out. You have gained so much knowledge through your experiences. Allow yourself to relax a little and trust your instincts.

And for a different perspective...I think it helps both of my kids that neither of them are "normal." There is a connection between the two of them that I don't think many siblings have. I hope that their "secret society" will serve them well all the way into adulthood. Even though their diagnoses are not the same, they will never be alone as long as they have each other.

Lastly, my friends with typical kids seem to worry all the time, too. Just about different things. So I always tell myself that part of being a mom is worrying and that if I wasn't worrying, I wouldn't be doing my job!

I've also noticed that parents of typical kids all seem to worry at least as much, at least out loud, as parents of kids who are not developing typically.

thanks,

I will try to drive myself less crazy! he is quite the enjoyable baby

well, I called EI...waiting for a call back. I cannot deny the lack of eye contact, the lack of responding to his name yet he will turn his head to the first tune of his TV show, he uses no gestures, no pointing, no waiving, no raising the arms to be held, aside from ALL DONE, he doesn't understand anything I say to him, maybe Bye Bye but I am not even sure.

I'd rather know. I NEED to know.

Good for you! Let us know how it goes.

And try to stop worrying!