3yo stares off into space a lot and seems distracted

[Sofshiz]

My 3yr 3 month old daughter does this thing where she just stares off into space and seems distant. It lasts for 10-15 seconds. If you ask her a question she will respond but in a distracted way for example by hmming instead of saying yes.

She's normal developmentally, speech is good, walked normally etc. She sometimes refuses to make eye contact when I ask her to look at me in my eyes. She loves role play and imaginative play and seems pretty normal in other areas. She goes to preschool and does well there.

She's such a bright child and her memory is amazing. She knew all the main stuff like colours, shapes, numbers and abcs way before other kids. But recently it's so hard to get to stay focused or teach anything to since she keeps doing this zoning out thing.

Has anyone had this? Is it normal?

[BackforGood]

Really difficult to say without seeing her.
It could be that she is having absences - which would need to be looked into by a specialist. OTOH, it could be that she is just thinking about something / focusing on something else.
Really not possible to know over the internet.
Have you discussed it with staff at her pre-school ?

[Sofshiz]

I've wondered about absences too but from my own google research they need to be unresponsive and she definitely responds. Nursery teachers haven't commented on anything yet and I don't want to uneccesarily add labels to her.

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

If she's having absence seizures then she needs treatment...not a parent who is worried about labels!

Sorry OP but you definitely need to get her to the GP. Google isn't good enough.

[Mammasmitten]

Sounds like she's daydreaming. Next time immediately after she has returned from being zoned out, casually ask her what she was thinking about. I have been around people who have epilepsy including one person who had absentee seizures and they can not respond or be aware of what is happening during a seizure. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Google daydreaming and see if that fits and makes you feel better about it.

[Sofshiz]

Mammasmitten I often do ask her very casually what she is thinking about and sometimes she says nothing and something she gives me an elaborate imaginative scenario. Or sometimes she'll tell me about something that we had done or she had done at nursery. But I'm just not sure

[WineCheeseSleep]

Have you ever had her hearing and eyesight checked?

[Belle82]

Sorry I know this is old. Did you ever get to the bottom of it?

My little girl did this and as I had epilepsy I went to get her checked.
She had and mri and 30 minute eeg and was wrongly diagnosed with epilepsy. I pushed & changed hospitals and she had a 2 24 hr eegs and they said she didn’t have it.

I went into serious depression/ guilt when we had the first diagnosis.

I also have a lot of these and when I had a 24 hr eeg I was told they were nothing.

For anyone looking at this post in the future please do raise with your gp but please do not jump to the worst conclusion ❤️❤️

Happy for anyone to PM me questions if you need to. I have been living with this for 20 years x