Daughter who likes to be left alone

[FunsizeMonsters]

Hi,
I have twin daughters, 3 years old. DD1 is starting to speak. Saying small sentences and pointing at things she wants and says no when she doesn’t want something. She is naughty at times but nothing too bad. So I’m not worried about her but DD2 on the other hand is not talking. She will sing rhymes while playing on her own but very rarely calls us mummy or daddy. I mean very very rarely like once in 2 to 3 weeks.

She prefers to play alone and gets very upset when her sister tries to play with her. She doesn’t like to be bothered. When she gets interrupted she cries a lot. As her sister keeps interrupting her, she is crying most of the day, everyday.

When she needs something, say a toy on the floor, she would grab my hand, make me get up from the sofa and walk me to the toy and put my hand on the toy. Literally, she would touch the toy in the process but she wouldn’t ask me for it or point at it.

DD2 is only 15mins younger to her sister and has received exactly the same care, attention, food, environment etc.., but I see a significant difference in her development. They both went to an all-day nursery for 2 months. That didn’t make any difference in DD2. I’m waiting for a specialist appointment. In the meantime, I thought of asking you lovely people, what more I can do to make her speak and make her engage with with her sister and us? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Argybargy18]

Hello!
I also have twins, they just turned 3, boy and girl. Your post could literally be describing my daughter a year to 6 months ago.

We noticed development delays in both our children from 18 months in speech and social interaction. But my daughter was definitely further behind. She has now been in therapy since June 2020. I will share the approach our speech therapist had with her. It is all very child led.

As a first step what we found really helped was going into her world, so following her around and mimicking her. My daughter loves jumping for example.. so when she jumps we jump and saying “jumping!” She likes dancing.. so we copy etc.. if she is playing with a specific toy we get something similar and play alongside her. Basically attempting to initiate interaction on her terms. It took time for her to get used to us in her space but eventually it worked really well with her.

Then we began the interrupting phase, if she is playing with something like a puzzle, keep hold of the pieces so she has to communicate with you to get it. Try and hold the piece up to your face and say what it is to encourage eye contact engagement etc.

When our therapist first started working with her she would spend the whole 45 mins trying to escape, within a month or two our daughter would spend the entire 45 mins sat with the therapist copying actions to songs, singing along and excited to see what the therapist would do next.

Hope this is helpful. But yes I would say identify what your child is most interested in and create as many activities and play around that. For us at the moment it’s rainbows!.

Good luck!

[FunsizeMonsters]

Hi @Argybargy18
Thanks a lot for your reply.

We had a health visitor do an assessment on DD2. She gave a report that her growth is that of a 24 months old (even though she is 38 months old now). We are going to get a speech therapist and also follow up with the Pediatrician.

You've given some very useful tips. I'm going to start "going in to her world" for next few days and see how it helps.

Thanks once again for your reply. You've been a great help. Thanks!