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Adoption

parenting a child removed at birth

7 replies

twoblueskies · 21/02/2018 09:04

Hi everyone
I've posted before about sleep ( I'll update) and just wanted peoples thoughts.
our lo was removed from hospital aged 10 days into a foster home, the foster carer had 2 older permanent placed children 10 , 11 one had FAS. i know it was a busy household but lo was definately loved and cared for before coming to us at 10 months.
we know that there is a level of disruption from bm to fc then to us and that as lo grows, will face some difficult truths about how life has been

But with that history what behaviour may we be seeing as result of LO early life and behaviour now , lo is nearly 4 . sleep and bowels are a problem and is not wanting to be away from me , but i know some of that is typical behaviour in a birth child of this age.

OP posts:
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lucylouuu · 21/02/2018 09:20

did you post too soon?

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IAmMumWho · 23/02/2018 11:45

I think LO just wants nurture, what they didn't get from birth Mum, Bowel problem sounds normal, my 3 year old either goes 2-3 times a day to one a week. We had bad sleeping with AD over xmas especially, took lots of cuddles and nurturing. She is very clingy aged 3. AS past two days has had more of my attention as he had a fall and just wanted mummy. He's currently cuddled up on my belly like a baby. All kids are different as they say. I wouldn't worry too much atm

She Combe regressing but you gotta ask why? The slightest thing she remembers could have changed her moods. X

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iamnotstinky · 23/02/2018 21:11

I read your other 2 threads on sleep.

I think the upbeat responses on the other threads are great, but you are obviously worried and it sounds like this has been going on for a long time, and the impression I got from your post was that your dd is very anxious, and there is more than one thing going on. Have you thought about seeing a psychologist who specialises in this area, to get an individual assessment, as they may be able to explain better what is going on and may be able to provide practical guidance in terms of environment and routine, and provide some guidance re the future? Speedy help now might prevent other problems later. I think that you can get asf funding now for this. There are private groups (of various professionals such as clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, other therapists) which specialise in developmental trauma, which allow asf funding, and if you approach them and provide initial referral information they could point you in the right direction for your child, taking into consideration age, behaviours, and advise whether or not they would be the right people to help. As I say, something right now might give you a huge amount of guidance and information.

Lack of sleep wreaks havoc with children's bodies and their ability to learn and develop and take in new information, and just cope generally. In relation to the physical things people have mentioned, sometimes it can become a cart/horse situation. Has your doctor recommend anything for the sleeping? I know some parents have been prescribed melatonin as a short term measure to get things back on track but I am not sure about the age.

Do you think the anxiety levels could be linked to nursery? Have you ever tried observing your dd there without her realising? Sometimes doing this gives amazing insight. She may not be coping there generally, and if so would you try keeping her with you and doing activities together a while? I have seen posters on mumsnet Smile suggest that this will mean children then won't cope at school a year later, but that isn't the case, a year can make a huge difference in terms of maturity.

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Italiangreyhound · 24/02/2018 22:22

I wonder if you can explore theraplay. You may be able to access through post adoption support.

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Italiangreyhound · 24/02/2018 23:23

@twoblueskies I wonder if one of the things to think about is that because your child was adopted so young, you don't always expect any issues or as many issues as you might if a child was adopted later.

I also wonder if the bowel issues have been investigated for a physical cause.

My son was adopted at 3 and at around 5 developed some bowel issues. They seemed to manifest around school (start of year) and seemed a bit like constipation, maybe compacted poo.

We were prescribed Laxido and it has massively has helped. Plus I really felt there was an emotional component. So I told my son that I felt he could cope with this and things could change and he seemed a bit empowered by that. We have no more incident of problems at school after that. I felt it was perhaps both a physical and emotional response.

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OlennasWimple · 26/02/2018 15:02

The biggest thing for our LO is attachment and control: in her ideal world, she would be velcroed to my side the whole time. But yet she will also play up and say and do horrible things to try to hurt me.

We think what is going on is that she is terrified that she will be taken away from us, even though she has no memory of her BM (and increasingly little of her FC). And if this is going to happen, it will happen because she made it so, because her behaviour meant that we "gave her up". She is in control, therefore, because she is choosing to do this stuff.

It's difficult and tiring all round, TBH. Therapy has been helpful to a point, and understanding what is happening is also helpful (though it's no less painful to be told that you are a horrible mother....).

As she is able to voice her thought more coherently, it's clear that she feels that BM didn't do enough to try to keep her and just gave up on her. We are struggling with the right narrative to help her deal with this at the moment - the "BM wasn't able to look after you properly" was fine when she was younger, but has rather run out of steam.

At the moment we are working on independence (not being velcroed to me) and understanding that we will never ever give her up

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iamnotstinky · 26/02/2018 18:39

Olennas what kind of therapy is it? What I am becoming increasingly aware of is that there is therapy and therapy. However good a therapist is, if it is the wrong kind of therapy at that time, it isn't going to do what it should?

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