Hi there

[Lalegid]

Hiya, i'm not sure if this is the right place for an into or not lol!
Anyway, I'm mum to 2 lovely kids Gideon (nearly 3) and Isla (16mths). We live way over in New Zealand :)

We are working on getting a diagnosis for Gid, we suspect he may be mildly autistic but we aren't sure. Some days are terrible (generally the days when we go out/have visitors or something changes) and the days when we are just at home, are ok... some of the time!

Gid has some language, mostly single words, a lot of which are words he has made up, he sometimes puts 2 words together (where daddy? etc). He doesnt like socialising and usually screams when other kids approach him, and he doesn't like making eye contact. We get some eye contact when he is relaxed. He is a very anxious kid, the world just seems to scare him. We think he has sensitive hearing (he hears aeroplanes and trains a mile away, and loves to hear clocks chiming).

There are other strange behaviours too, of course he may not be autistic, but it is something we need to investigate!

[LIZARD]

Welcome to our happy corner of BT! :)

I'm just an experienced mom of a sweet high-functioning autistic teenage boy, but it sounds like you have two main possibilities: high-functioning autism (or Asperger's) or Sensory Processing Disorder. At your son's age, my son had no language. He had just been dx'ed, and because of excellent therapy, he was speaking soon afterward. :)

If you possibly can, I would see a developmental or pediatric specialist (neurologist, psych, or a team of ped specialsts, if you can get them). Here in the US, pediatricians have long been famous for being autism-clueless. :rolleyes:, so we have learned that ped specialists are the way to go. I hope you can get them in NZ.

*hug and good luck!

LIZARD :)

[Lalegid]

Hi Lizard,
thanks for that :)
We have seen a speech therapist who has referred us to a team of peads (who we will see at some stage next year)

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Welcome!

Coley was very sensative to little sounds too. There were times when I swear he was hearing things too...but who knows it could have been the humming of the fridge that I had learned to tune out. But there were times that I honestly felt like he was going crazy.

I can empathize with the whole leaving the house thing! Thank god he's past that now...but that was particularly hard! Especially when you rely on docs to figure it out and all they'd do is give you some gibberish and send you packing, and then we'd have to deal with the upset for days! UGH! I don't miss those days! And then family...no one understood! And our family is big...DH is the eldest of 7, and Coley was lucky #13 in the line of grandchildren...T-day & Christmas get togethers were a minimum of 28 people...half of which were screaming children...talk about torture!

So, I don't think I've offered anything here...more than a welcome & nope, you're not alone...so I'll add that I agree with Lizard!

For us, the first step forward came after his full neuro assessment, the next was after a metabolic work-up, both with specialists. But between that was meeting our god-send, Coley's developmental ped, that pushed us in the right directions for help. We also get a lot of support from his ped. We ended up having to fire his first ped. His current ped is MUCH more open minded and has a VERY common sense approach...that helps us a lot! The docs in your corner are very important, if you don't like them, or feel like they don't have your children's best interest at heart...dump 'em! There are plenty out there!

There are many more experiened mom's here...I'm sure they will be able to help you as you move through the assessments, whatever they may reveal!

I'm looking forward to getting to know you and your children better!

[Lalegid]

Hi Kirsten :) thanks for the welcome! It's so great to know there are other mums to talk to about this, sometimes I feel quite alone here. And embarresed when Gid screams at vistors!

DH and I went to see a movie this morning and left Gideon and Isla with my sister. Gid howled and screamed when we left, poor wee poppet. He settled down eventually though.
When I got home, he wanted cuddles but wouldn't look in my direction at all - I didn't get any eye contact for about 10 minutes! He must have been upset. We are trying to decide what to do for his 3rd birthday. I know he would hate a bday party, so we might take him to the musem to look at the cars and trains (he loves wheels and lights :D so that will be a special treat!)

Has anyone got any advice on fussy eaters? He seems to eat nothing but pasta, bread (he is going off bread now) um... what else... mince, and broad beans. Oh - and crackers. He gets upset if there is a food on his plate that he doesn't like and often will tip the whole lot on the floor. I don't know how to introduce new foods. He doesn't like a lot of textures (lumps in yogurt get spat out and the plate pushed away)...

[peglem]

It often worked for my child to have something to dip food into (still does actually. She'll eat some fresh veggies if she has ranch dip. When she was younger ketchup was a good dip. Her grandma was good about getting her to try new things. I swear this kid would have starved to death if we didn't have crunchy peanut butter and marshmallow cream!

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Oh sweetie, I just want to cry a river of tears for you...there is NOTHING worse than trying to get a stubborn (is that the right word?) kid to eat that doesn't want to!

I could type a novel on the subject! And we still have our fair share of issues...but thankfully it doesn't involve hunger strikes and vomit! THANK GOD for miracles!

Anyhoo...in short you really can't and shouldn't force a kid to eat anything they don't want to. What you gotta do is try to find an apealing way to get it past the 'taste-test' phase, like Pegs did with the dip.

It's late here now and I only popped in to shut down the PC, but couldn't resist offering my sympathies on the subject...I may not get another chance to post back this weekend as we are generally crazy here over weekends...if I can post I will, but if not, I will definately be back to help on the subject monday.

Meantime, try to think of all (albeit a short list) of things he likes to eat. Specific things, flavors and textures. I'm sure we can come up with an array of things to try. Some will bomb, but some may not. We can work toward a specific goal...like an appropriate amount of protien...and I'm sure we can get close.

You may also want to consider getting in to see a nutritionist and a feeding therapist too...

Oh another thing...there are feeding support groups out there...I found an amazing group of moms on Yahoo, here is the link: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/feeding/

No matter how bad you think you may have it...and trust me I'm not saying that to minimize it, it's a HORRIBLE thing to tackle...but these moms are WAY experienced, they can help!

Have a good night!
KJ

[Lalegid]

Thanks again :)
He hates dip or sauce or anything like that, so sadly that trick won;t work .he wouldn't touch his sausages for tea the other night because i had cooked them in a casserole. So he went to bed hungry the wee monkey.

[LIZARD]

Thanks again :)
He hates dip or sauce or anything like that, so sadly that trick won;t work .he wouldn't touch his sausages for tea the other night because i had cooked them in a casserole. So he went to bed hungry the wee monkey.

My son is 14 and exactly the same way. When he orders chicken fingers, he is absolutely adamant: NO sauce. I think this is a common problem for our kids.

LIZARD :)

[Lalegid]

He also can't stand mess on his fingers of if something spills on his top. Though, if he is about to throw a tanty he will often tip his whole plate or drink all over the table or floor (which escalates the problem!)

His little sister is 16months and she can say all the words GId says too, so that's where is language is at. Mostly naming words, no joining words (except for "where" when he askes "where daddy")

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

I'm sorry...I'm having a bit of a crisis today...

The kids are sick, we had a pretty unproductive weekend and I haven't touched our homework...UGH!

I need to get to that, and I got VERY little sleep last night!

Then tomorrow we have our meeting with Coley's psych to review his test results, then our class in the evening, so tomorrow's a wash too...

I've been thinking of things though and will be back to help brainstorm food ideas on Wed, ok?

Sorry,
KJ

[Lalegid]

That's ok Kirsten, I hope the kids feel better soon :)

[JungleWoman]

Lalegid,

Heya this is Amanda-- we talked the other day on MSN with Happi/Paulette--- remember me?

You said:
So he went to bed hungry the wee monkey.

I have had times where Aaron will be practically putting all the ingredients for dinner in the pan for me while I'm cooking as if to say "HURRY UP AND GET DONE MOM!" and then I get it to the table and he refuses to eat it and goes to be hungry.

One thing I have noticed with all 5 of my kids is they go thru a spell from time to time of surviving seemingly on air LOL.

When we changed Aaron's diet to the gluten and casein free diet-- he was 2. I thought he'd die at first because he was SOOOOOO dead set against doing anything I wanted him to do in the eating department.

Until I found gluten and casein free ways to make cookies and brownies--- after that, he started eating more and more. There are hot dogs and even breads and stuff that are actually pretty decent.

Aaron ate Almond bread. Expensive, but he ate it and I was happy LOL! (Happi once told me that her sister in law (I think) has some great GFCF bread recipe, maybe she can hook you up in that department)

Soon we will be going back on the GFCF diet again. I just gotta be sure that it's not the case with him.

The good news:

They eventually get hungry enough to eat what you give them!

[Lalegid]

Hi Amanda, I thought I might see you on here :)
I do need to start stocking up on gf recipes, I will ask Paulette about those bread recipes.

The other prob we are having at the moment (not related to food) is that he has gone backwards in his toilet training. He toilet trained very quickly (we guess because he doesn't like making messes so he associated the loo with being clean). He had a sore tummy last week and has since decided he's scared of the toilet... and is back in nappies. Using the potty occasionally. I assume he is thinking the loo makes his tummy sore? I hope we get him out of nappies again soon, it's hard work having 2 kids in naps (we use modern cloth nappies, oh the washing!)

Excuse all the questions :o