Urgent advice needed - think DH wants to give DS back

[BangPippleGo]

DS (14mo) was placed with us 3 weeks ago. He is waking during the night at 2am and then coming in with us - he slept through the night at his foster carers. He whinges when he is put down if you've been holding him. He's very clingy to me but doesn't really want DH yet. DH is constantly telling him "no" because he tries to climb on things he shouldn't etc because, you know, he's 14mo.

All of which I would say is normal behaviour for a 14mo. DH doesn't think so. Says "we can't give him back because then I would be the cunt who denied you your only chance if being a mum". I feel sick. I don't know what to do.

Jelly that is very wise.

I felt very angry and invaded when I got a letter 'inviting' me to a meeting with the venue as our own bloody house! At a time I couldn't do. I.e. they planned a meeting in my own house, but didn't check in the slightest I was ok with that, or that the time/date was ok. Oh, I'm still raging now.

I wish I'd known that having LAC reviews etc can be not at your house. I got so sick of my house becoming some kind of community meeting space.

The first day my foster to adopt son came home he screamed solidly for five hours. A high pitched scream because he was withdrawing. When oh got home I handed the baby to him, burst into tears and said' I don't think I can do this.' The first few months were very tough on all of our family as we adjusted. My birth son would cry and say he didn't want the baby. My marriage became strained. We're now seven months into placement and things are so different. My birth loves his younger brother. We've all bonded with him and our marriage is back on track. All the doubts I had about coping were wrong. It's a huge adjustment and my god parenting is tough at times. I think your husband needs more time to bond and to adjust. Maybe a little group or activity the two of them do together. As long as your husband is prepared to work at building a relationship that's what matters.

Huh. Slightly off topic but it never occurred to me to suggest meeting elsewhere. And, tbh, near the LA offices weren't great for security reasons (we're an out-of-area placement).

But I didn't used to think cynically that everyone got a lovely morning out of the office drinking tea at my house, including random hangers on (hello, 'post adoption support worker' who wants to talk about letterbox!) instead of being at work. I never offered biscuits.

DID! DID used to think cynically.

It's definitely your own LAs responsibility to provide somewhere to meet - our reviews were held at our kids school/nursery premises but they can literally use any local authority property with meeting rooms so family centres, leisure centres, resource centre - I'd always have them off site not least because I feel less vulnerable than I would having a string of professionals in my house discussing my family.

I'd gently advise you not to hold professional meetings or reviews at your home - your home should be a safe, secure space for your family, it's not an office space.

I think this really depends on circumstances. It was a big journey for us to go to the LA offices, so we were always happy for SW to come to us. Our LASWs definitely used the visits in the way Rain describes. (we did cake, bacon butties or croissants). I also think the relaxed atmosphere helped us. I would definitely agree that more formal meetings (e.g. planning/life appreciation) with multiple professionals should be in an office.

just be wary of professionals who talk about good attachment early in placement, attachment takes a long time to develop even in very little ones..... At this stage a nice bond and developing relationship are fantastic signs that things are ok.

#listentojelly. Couldn't agree more.

You're a good host, don. I didn't, um, like them enough for croissants.

Apologies for banging a familiar drum:

You also have to remember that your child will have attachment trauma as he's already on carer number 3 in his short life.

You can't say that this child has 'attachment trauma'. He could have been cared for by FC from birth. Not all BPs have abused their child. There is no evidence that children who have not experienced trauma and have been adopted at a young age have vastly greater rates of attachment difficult than other children.

The main reason for high rates of 'attachment issues' in adoptees is poor care from BPs. A second big cause is multiple moves within the care system. Many adoptees have not experienced these issues- the circumstances of adoptions are varied.

Obviously any move in care at such a critical age creates risk, and paying attention to attachment building is critical. Even if OP does everything right, there are no guarantees; but younger adoptees have vastly better outcomes.

No wonder he's whingy.

This is not an indicator of attachment problems.

I appreciate that your comments are meant well. In many ways it's good advice- you can't do too much to build attachment. What worries me is that it reinforces the pervasive idea that ALL adoptees are 'damaged' in some way.

As ever, I claim no special expertise in psychology and am always happy to learn.

You're a good host, don. I didn't, um, like them enough for croissants.

It only continued for our fab VA SW. One particularly awful LA SW wasn't even getting brews in the end so she wouldn't stay too long.

I'm northern. Not offering a drink brings shame to my people. I still feel guilty.

I'm Irish. I don't know what happened to me. I always offered something to our lovely SW. But the rest of them were a real shower.

He may not have attachment trauma but you also don't know what was going on while he was in the womb either. Attachment trauma can start pre birth. And even if he was with FC from birth he's still had 3 carers already. I'm a FC and I go on loads of training re AT. Doesn't make me any kind of expert I know but doesn't make me wrong either.

@GinisLife Attachment trauma can start pre birth.

What would the mechanism for this be? I can't find any research to support this assertion and it contradicts my understanding of the theory. A poor in utero environment can cause all sorts of problems; but what do you mean by 'attachment trauma' if not insecure attachment caused by inconsistent care?

I'm aware of research indicating that children of drug addicts have elevated attachment problems, but surely the issue is parenting? Similar studies amongst adoptees who were born addicted have much, much better outcomes.

I'd love to read some citations. I'm open to being wrong. When I've heard similar ideas in the past they've been based in discredited pseudoscience like the primal wound.

Dan Hughes (2003) talks about the risk factors for attachments disorders as being:

• Pre-birth stress (DSH)
• Domestic Violence
• Alcohol/drug taking during
pregnancy
• Parental illness
• Neglect
• Abuse
• Home instability
• Poverty
• Abandonment
• Parental illness
• Post Natal Depression
• Premature baby
• Medical complications
• Bereavements in the family
• Baby Having a disability
• Abandonment
• Mental health difficulties
in the caregivers
• Multiple home and school
placements during child’s
early years

As you can see, Pre-birth stress is first on the list. Attachment starts before we are born. Our experience with our mother is really important. Its why woman sit and stroke their bump, talk to it, play music to it. Why they like their partners to stroke it, why they often dislike other people touching it....etc. Its the beginnings of the bond between mother and child. Parenting is only one half of the problem as you can see on the list above.
Any stresses in the pregnancy affects the baby, and affects the attachment between mother and baby. So illness, drugs, stress, violence, all affect the growing baby and in turn will possibly lead to a diagnosis of attachment disorder for that baby at a later date - whether the baby goes on to be adopted or not. Some children who remain in the birth family, who had significant trauma in pregnancy or infancy are diagnosed with attachment disorder.

Dan Hughes is probably the best source of info for this. His writing style is fairly easy too :) Hope that helps.

It's worth bearing in mind that attachment theory is still pretty young, especially the neuroscience around it which is what a lot of the chat about pre-birth impact is based on. The idea is that stress hormones pre-birth affect the babies development in a way that inhibits their ability to develop secure attachments. Personally I think the idea of pre-birth experience causing attachment trauma is just another thing for women to beat themselves up over and gives HV an "argument" for children who show signs of attachment difficulties when parents are adamant there has been no trauma.

I do agree that for adopted children (and adopters) the presumption that there will be attachment trauma in every case is so deeply unhelpful, not every traumatised child will have attachment trauma. It's also worth bearing in mind that most adults don't have a secure attachment style and do ok. Having an insecure attachment style isn't in and of itself the end of the world - it means a child has learned how relate in such a way as to have its needs met when caregivers are less than attuned to them. Disorganised attachment is quite a bit different but again a very small proportion of the population have a disorganised attachment style (though I suspect over-represented in the adopted population).

Yes, attachment matters but it's way too easy for everything to be blamed on attachment (and therefore parents need to work harder at building attachment) rather than looking at what else might be fuelling the fire. As a SW I work with attachment theory all the time but I must say my thinking has been very challenged following adoption and parenting two very traumatised children.

That is not how a list of risk factors works. Risk factor doesn't mean caused by. It's likely to include some correlation. So pre birth stress could mean that a parent is less likely to bond with a child, but doesn't necessarily mean that poor attachment started in utero. Something which is causing extreme stress during pregnancy such as living with violence, drug addiction, extreme poverty etc - you know all the possible reasons - these situations do not tend to magically go away on their own after birth, hence a stressful pregnancy tends to indicate a stressful environment postnatally and a possible barrier to attachment.

Bertie i'm not sure what 'thats not how a list of risk factors work' means.
I was giving a list of risk factors....they are what they are - risk factors.
That list was produced by Dan Hughes - one of the leading specialists in adoption.
Many agree, many dont.
Its just another thought.

Pre-birth experiences cannot be discounted whatever way we look at it. Its not about giving women more guilt either.
Babies who are removed at birth, have lovely fc experience, one move to loving adoptive homes are being diagnosed with attachment disorder.
How do you explain it if it not down to attachment between mother-baby in utero?
How else does baby have attachment experience pre-birth?

Its very interesting.
I also have friends who parent bc, who had awful pre-birth depression and attachment issues, and watching them struggle with attachment now has been so familiar to the world of adoption!

We have gone off on a tangeant to OP post sorry! - but wanted to answer donq question ☺

I sympathise with the DH - I have bad eczema which needs consultant dermatology etc.

Certainly not helped by stress.
We are in stage 1, so early at the moment.

Good luck op

Hmm, perhaps I was reading into it and the guilt thing more than you intended to put across. I can see what you are saying. But I do think it's largely unknown how this works - so we can't say for sure that pre-birth stress causes attachment difficulties before children are born. There can be many reasons that a parent does not do the activities that you suggest as "bonding" or the beginnings of attachment between baby and mother and yet they do not necessarily have issues once the baby is born. Of course in some cases they will.

A risk factor tends to mean that factors are correlated with a particular outcome, not that they cause it directly. Some will be direct causes, of course, but not all. It did sound as though you were saying here is the list of risk factors and since X is at the beginning, it's clearly one of the largest causes.

I think all I meant was that we don't know enough to confidently declare that attachment begins before birth. I could believe that it would be traumatising to a newborn baby, who has known only its mother's womb, to be taken totally away to another person with different rhythms and smells etc, no matter how attentive and caring they are (though I never know, because how can the inside of a womb smell like a person on the outside? Isn't every human adult heartbeat the same? I don't know.) Perhaps it is just a mechanism that we don't yet understand at all.

sorry bertie, no I didn't mean cos its first on the list its the biggest factor no. It just happens Dan Hughes put it first on the list - perhaps because its the one that happens before a baby is born.

I don't think there is any guilt involved for parents pre-birth. one can only do what one can do....

I agree with you in that some mothers do nothing to aid attachment to their unborn baby - and yet their baby is born and click - its an instant love that happens and somehow the bond between them and their baby occurs almost instantly.
other mothers say their love grows over time.
other mothers say they had to work very hard but it did come and they attached to their baby and their baby to them.
others sadly could not not develop a bond or attachment to their baby and those are often the children who end up as LAC.

some babies despite the mothers inability to form a bond, are able to go on to develop good attachments with people - their father, or a FC if taken into care etc.....or they go on to be adopted and are never diagnosed with any attachment problems. It probably depends on babies personality also, and how resilient they are too.....

so while we are still largely in the dark re the mechanism of all of this - we know the risk factors - we can read a childs CARA and know oh gosh - they had a very poor pregnancy experience, they spent a long time in hospital SCBU, BM had mental health difficulties. They would be 3 big red flags that the child is highly likely to go on to develop an attachment disorder....
yet they may not.....
but they are 3 risks factor that the SW probably will not highlight to prospective adopters. If i were the prospective adopters I would be asking questions about their behaviour re attachment in FC, and asking the medical advisor for his thoughts on this. Forewarned is forearmed after-all :)

OP - I'm glad things are looking up. No-one can really adequately prepare adoptive parents for the shock of suddenly having a whole new person to look after 24/7. We were birth parents first, but even that didn't prepare us for how difficult the early weeks would be.

One thing I would say is that it's fairly common in our house to play musical beds to get through the nights with as little disrupted sleep as possible when one of us is sick. I don't really get the "if I'm up, you have to be up" approach (though obviously that works for some people). I'd rather one of got some sleep rather than both of us being tired the next day (poonamis and serious, two person incidents aside)

So if DH needs to sleep on the sofa when DS needs to be in with you, then that's what I would do.

I also wouldn't sit on the floor of my own house during LAC meetings, but that's just me (I hated the power play undercurrents during some of those meetings) I had never thought about insisting that they were held elsewhere - I found it easier for them to come to me, and I'm all about making things easier for me

Hope things are getting easier OP, the first few months are indescribably hard, and there's no shame in asking for help in whatever form that might take. I was adamanat that I didn't have post adoption depression per se, but months of asking for help in dealing with a very rejecting LO brought me to the brink, and Antidepressants saved my marriage. There will be ups and downs on this road, but keep on reaching out. X

At the time this was posted it'd only been 3 weeks since placement. It's still early days @BangPippleGo

Yes DH has Health worries and surely he had that throughout your assessment. It's normal he's having off days as I'm sure you are too.

We don't get a handbook on how to raise children or be the best parents. This comes naturally.

Soon as his treatment starts and is underway I'm sure he'll be better (with time) seek support from the Adoption team or Social Worker.

Hope everything works out well for you but please don't let this ruin your chance of being a mummy or ruin your marriage xx

We don't get a handbook on how to raise children or be the best parents. This comes naturally.

I'm not sure it does come naturally tbh, at least it hasn't for me. My own experience of being parenting was pretty difficult and I don't have good models of parenting - so I know what I'd like family life to look like but don't always know how to get there. I read a lot, talk to friends a lot, dad threads here to give be a sense of how to be the kind of parent my children need but it's very far from natural to me - it's a real effort. It feels more natural now than it did but that's because I'm in a routine and feel a bit more secure in myself but I know at each stage I'll have some learning to do.

I'm saying that because "it'll all come naturally" sounds wonderful, until it doesn't and you start doubting yourself.

Sometimes it comes naturally but to be honest that is probably the fun bits!

For all the other bits advice from people who understand your situation is very helpful. Good books relevant to your situation can help. Plus of course support, which may just be a friend listening when you are stressed, or a friend or family member offering to get the shopping in, or do something else to help you.

We have also had superb after adoption support, which is really worth asking for early if you think you are going to need it.

jellyfish you were saying something about, in relation to attachment, the parenting reality not being able to match the theory, can I ask what you meant? Or for examples? Do SWs get training in attachment theory, or did you have further qualifications? And I am sorry if those are obvious questions!