Things are looking really good!!!!!

[lijaco15]

I posted previously very gloomily regarding our little Grandson. I am very pleased to say that our assessment is positive and our contact is now taking place at home. We are moving forward to unsupervised contact with a view to our little Grandson moving in with us in the very near future. We are so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi KristinaM,

We go to panel at the end of Oct. My contact is now 3 times a week for 6 hours each time. Plans are being put in place for over night stays with our little Grandson to move in with us early November!!!!
Foster Carer is aware that we are going to panel and when I arrived to pick baby up she aked me when he is likely to move in with us. She then told me how much she loved and adored him and would miss him so much. She informed me of how this move would have such a huge impact on baby. That the children she cares for will be devestated. How would my 3 year old feel with a baby living with us. As the conversation progressed she asked if she could keep in touch with baby and perhaps have him on say a Saturday so that me and my other half could have some time. I felt very uneasy and did not know how to handle the situation. I pick baby up from the f.c. house and drop him back off. I don't want to cause a rift but I was hoping to break ties. The f.c. looked emotional and devestated. I told her that we loved our Grabdson very much and have missed him since the day that he was born. Circumstances prevented us being free to see him. We all as a family can't wait for him to live with us, but I am worried about the trauma involved with the f.c. and her young foster children of 7 and 10.
The f.c. is extremely attatched. This perhaps is normal but I would be interested to hear from any foster carers who have looked after a baby and then the baby has then be placed with family. How do you cope with the situation. Is this normal?

so pleased to hear you are having so much contcat with gs

I'm concrend that you are losing focus a bit. teh Fc is not your problem. i underatdn that you may feel like breaking contcat suddenyl but thats not best for your gs. they are all teh family he has knwon for most of his life. teh fact that she is so attached is GOOD for your gs. You need to be working out how to transfer that attachemnt to you, not worrying about her

have to read about attachment parensting? hwo are you going to work this around the needs of your 3yo?

sorry for bad typing baby on lap

I'm sorry if I sounded brusque - i'm really concrendbecause teh next few montsh are just CRUCIAL for teh rest of yrou gs life and its so imporatnt that your energy is going towarsd meeting his needs and also your own young child

what sense is your 3yo making of this? does s/he knwo that his/her nephew is coming to live with you?

I would be polite and firm and say that you will stick to whatever conatct arrangements have been made for post placement. If you are not sure check these with your sw.

My 3 year old adores baby and cannot wait when we go to pick him up. He is very helpful and involved. He talks about g.s constantly. He is very loving towards him. I agree that f.c. has been only family that g.s has known, and we haven't got a problem with keeping in touch. Just wany to do the right thing. Would of hoped for more input from s.w.
Just felt in a very awkwhard position that she would have been more supportive in him being placed with his family rather than a reluctant attitude.

Where can I find this info an attatchment parenting?

Most commonly recommended book for very young baboes being adopted is "First steps in parenting The child who hurts: Tiddlers and Toddlers" C Archer. I think you can get it on Amazon. Most book on attachment in adoption focus on older babies and children so this one may be the most appropriate.

Commonly they recommend against having visitors or poeple holiding the baby until you think they are well attached to you which can be 3 weeks to 3 months. Many adoptive parents ban visitors (except maybe very closefamily) to the home for 4 weeks then slowly allow them but not cuddling baby You want him to get used to the fact that he is dependent on you for comfort, food warmth etc as he has learnt that various people can provide it. You need him to "unlearn" it if you see what I mean

here

Take a look at what others bought too it may suggest other books.

agree with Kc that teh Archer book is very good. and written from first hand experinece

there is lots of useful information here on teh adoption uk website. i strongly suggest you join and think about being involved in a local group

There is lots of information out there on promoting attachemnt in high risk babies like yours. you will be particularly interested on the information on the effects of early trauma, given the multiple carers your Gs has had in a few months and the short time he was with his mother. You will also want to read up on the risks of pre natal exposure to drugs and the risks associated with his strong family history of mental health problems

I'm glad to hear that your little son is so postive about the baby coming. i hope teh reality isnt a shock for him (i speak from expernce here ). i also have a 3yo son and a baby (both bio) so I knwo its not easy.

As KC says, the advice is that only YOU feed , change and care for your GS until he is attached to you. this will be very hard on your 3yo as you cant share the tasks with others as you coudl if you had just given birth. Will you have soemone around all day to help you, or is your 3y at nursery? I'm afraid that you will not be able to stick to your normal routine and have the baby just fit in. Which is what most of your friends will expect. It doesnt really work like that with an adopted child.

i am really REALLY surprised that your Sw has not covered all these issues with you!!! What on earth have they been doing for all these months????

re the Fc - i suspect that she was hoping that she coudl keep your Gs, so she is bitterly dispapointed. Its no refelction on you personally. you shoudl be GLAD that she is so attached - it will be hard for you but its the best thing that coudl have happened for your GS.

there is information here on parenting high risk babies and toddlers

nancy thomas

anything by greg keck, regina kupecky and dan hughes may also be useful

BTw it woudl be best for Gs if you keep to the Fc routine at first. also give him the same food & milk,use teh same bottles cups and dummies ( if he has them), any comforters, use the same soap powder etc,use the same clothes, bedding and toys. So you need to knwo exactly what he does at teh moment. try to change as little as possible - it will be traumatic enough for him to leave without chaneging anything else

it doesnt matter if you dont like them, its what your gs is familiar with. You can chnage them gradually later on when he is more settled

I just checked back and he he will be about 5-6 montsh old when he coems to you. you need to keep him on bottles and not move him to cups, ( whatever the HV says). he must always get the bottle from you, holding him like a new born, preferably making eye contact. he doesnt get to hold the bottle himslef. if he is not on solids alreday, delay as long as possibel and do teh traditional spoon feeding stuff, not baby led weaning. unlike with other babies, you are trying to promote dependence ( on you)not independence.

as Kc says, no one esle to cuddle or hold him except you and your DP. If he wont come to you then you need to stop cuddling by Dp as well.yes i know, your friends and family wil not like thes, so you will need to explain to them in advance

basically you are trying to redo what you didnt get to do when he was born. he is going to regress emotionally and developmentally anyway, because of the trauma of the move. you want to turn him into a velcro baby.you and you alone are to be teh source of all comfort. then later his dad can get more involved. ( by thsi i mean his other main carer, who i assuem is your DH/Dp and not his bio dad)

only you (or perhaps his dad at a push) to bath him and change him. lots of skin to skin contcat eg massage lotion into him after bath. use a rear facing buggy if you can (for eye contcat). no controlled crying even if you did it for your other children - he is too vulnerabel.no leaving him on playmat or playpen - he needs to be carried as much as possible

sorry, i know its a bit disjointed, just trying to think of all teh relvant stuff for a baby of his age

now you see why i am saying that it will be VERY HARD on your 3yo and demanding of you. you will need a lot of support. and also why i am saying that the Fc being upset is the least of your problems!!!!!!!

usual apology for bad tying . i am not illiterate, its just i mostly get to mumsnet while i am bf so only have one hand

Kristina - I'd forgotte about the bottle feeding - I got DS back onto a bottle aged 1yr when he was already on cups and had such a battle with my mum about it. Didn't matter how many times I tried to explain attachment to her, she still tried to make me do what she thought was right. She was very supportive in so many other ways. In the end I just said "I know you don't understand but I'm going to do it anyway so learn to live with it"

I was lucky in some ways being stuck in Kaz for 3 months meant I had the one-one bonding without friends and family (except my mum for part of it) around.

As a result DS is very well (and normally) attached to me (at the moment figers crossed we don't regress at a later date). It was much harder work than anyone realised as they didn't see it! It was a bit like having a very large new-born.

oh sue you are so right! when you were stuck in kaz i was REALLY concerned for you ( you knwo i was)but i did think at the time that while it was HORRIBLY stressful for you, it was the best possibel thing for D. But didnt think it was a good time to point that out.....

is D saying much now? I think he is almost exactly teh same age as our Ds2 9 ( 2 in dec) and all we have so far is

names of family members
vehicles - busbus, carcar, toottoot
food - rayray ( raisins), grapes, toast and yogyog, wawa (water) and bowl

other objects of interets - baby, buggy, shoes

i am sure teh girls were saying more at thsi age...perhaps its a boy thing. or maybe just being the yougest in a big family and being waited on hand and foot

BTw has anyone asked you yet if D is speaking russian???

bizarrely KrisM even at the time when I was (at times) frantic to get home, I knew it was better for DS. I look bad on it fondly now! A bit like a horrendous labour, when eventually you really can;t quite recall the full horror of it.

DS's sopeech is very delayed - so far all we get is "mumum" (very clearly), cak cak (quack quack), cah (car or cat depending on circumstances), brm brm (car noise) and ppppllllll (please)

Everyone - sw and hv tell me not to be concerned that the combination of lack of one-one care for first year, change in language and being a boy mean that they will not even start to worry until he's 2.5 and even them intercountry adopted children are often more delayed than that.

My feeling is that he will probably be talking a little more by the end of the year, he's often a slow starter with things and then zooms ahead. His walking was prime example - he didn't start until he was about 17 months but he is now more agile than most of his age and climbs steep inclines like a monkey!

oh and his prematurity counts agaionst him too - however he has now started catching up on the size charts and is on the charts for his true calendar age for the first time (in the bottom quarter admittedly). How ridiculously excited am I? Hoping that my scales are reasonably accurate though!

are you sure thats very delayed??? Is he the same age as mine? he seems to talk a lot like him. If your DS has 5 words and mine has 15, thats doesn't sounds like a big difference to me!

Maybe I shoudl be worried about DS2 - i suppose i assumed he was on the bottom end of the normal range, which i put down to teh double disadvantage of being a boy and being the youngest in a big family.

But he does underastdn everything eg if you say " we're going out" he will go to the door and try to get his jacket

or if you say " its bathtime" he will go upstairs and hammer on teh bathroom door ( locked from the outside to stop him playing in the loo)

etc etc

sorry for the hijack of your thread liljaco! Hows it going?

no I'm told he isn't very delayed - it just seems like it compared to every other 22 month old I know! His understanding is really very good and HV said thats really all they look for at this age.

shame you stay hundreds of miles from me then, or we coudl meet up and make you feel better about his language skills

KC - have you seen this language development in internationally adopted children

not sure if this is adding anything to either conversation but..

Lijaco15, I got a sling for my DS2 who came at 6 months, didn't use it hugely in the house but was very useful when out e.g. church as it meant people didn't keep taking him off me "for a cuddle". I was very mother hen with them for the first few months. Great news though I remember when you first posted about your GS.

also re; speech, both my two had virtually no words before age 2, I put it down to the changes of carer etc. The floodgates did open eventually though, so I hope D catches up too in spite of the added language issue.

Hello, Hope I'm not intruding. Just to say my son (biological etc)was not talking much and we could not make sense of what he was saying as he was not saying the first letter of each word ie. am could be Sam or Ham etc. This continued until 3 weeks before he was due to start nursery at 3yrs old. Then suddenly it was like a light being switched on in his head and he started talking perfectly normally and new all of his letters, numbers, shapes, colours etc and the nursery within a couple of months called us in to say he is very intelligent. Since then lots of mums (especially of boys) have said the same thing. Speach can be very sudden and you suddenly realise how much they have been taking in. Goodness knows how he had learnt to count and the alphabet as because he wasn't speaking I hadn't done this with him. I assume this was learnt whilst watching cbeebies. Anyway what I meant to say is don't worry things will eventually click and then he won't stop chatting. Good luck.

Thank you very much for all your advice, I was completely unaware of the attatchment process. I feel much clearer and positive. I undestand now what you have explained. G.S will be coming t us first week in Nov. I will be contacting s.w. tomorrow to discuss issues with foster carer. They haven't been in touch as yet!

lijaco - thats great news - i am so pleased for you all. please keep us posted - I was thinking about you and wondering how things were going

Hi G.S MOVING IN WITH US ON tHURS!!!
I am getting organised and we are very happy!!