12 Month Old Support

[ThatOliveReader]

Hoping someone can ease my concerns a little. I adopted a boy last June and he turned one in December. I’m a little worried about his development when it comes to socially. When we go to play groups, he’ll stay sat with me and just watch everyone around us, he doesn’t partake in anything. I will say that if someone smiles at him, he smiles back but he’ll stay with me. He was a late crawler (a week before his first birthday) but doesn’t crawl anywhere within a group for toys. It’ll take him a good thirty minutes or so before he starts playing with any of the toys in front of him. Is something I should be concerned about? His birth parents have learning difficulties though I can’t say what they are so I’m looking out for everything.

Hi, and congratulations on your adoption!

I'm going to start with I am sure you are doing amazingly… Babies are all so different and that multiplies again with adoption in the mix!

My advice would be try not to over analyse and certainly don’t compare it really means nothing for our little ones as they all have such different starts

our DS was placed as ffa at 4 months old I went to one baby group way too soon (for us both) and was so traumatised I didn’t go to any other mainstream groups! They weren’t for us!

we did plenty of socialising with friends & family he didn’t miss out, I remember my Sw standing up for me in a lac meeting as I was getting pressured to go to more groups but they weren’t a good fit for us.

Having said that we did enjoy adoption playgroups twice a month in term time. I remember at 1 he still took a while to settle, he found it quite overwhelming and just needed time to adjust I think so we would start at a table I’d have a drink and a chat while he took it in having a cuddle then we’d move to the floor and I’d sit next to him and play with toys he would join in in his own time and he’d normally get brave enough to set out & explore as we were packing up !

By 2 it was a very different story and he was much more confident. He’s 7 now and really confident in social situations!

our ds biological parents also have learning disabilities so I understand the uncertainty and if you want to know a bit more feel free to dm me

what I will say is that your ds will be who he will be because of how you parent him as well as his genetics and worrying won’t change that so try & relax a little (totally appreciate how hard this is in the midst of new parent hood!!!) and enjoy it - I wish I had, as I feel like I could have enjoyed that precious baby time more but it’s easy to say for me now with hindsight! At the time it was really hard!!

sorry for the length of the reply and I hope it helps a little !

Thank you so much for your response! I think the added worry is because of the start he had so I’m overthinking a number of things.

We also go to two adoption stay and plays a month and he’ll just sit there watching everyone. I’ll admit he’s a little younger than most but at home, you can’t get him to stop moving whereas it’s a completely different story in social situations.

Hi. I adopted two girls whose parents have learning disabilities. We were given a lot of info about our girls' birth parents' disabilities and we knew there was a chance the girls would have this too.

As it turned out, one of them has a learning disability. And they both have a genetic deletion which probably explains a lot - we didn't discover this until years later when they were assessed by the genetics team ( long story).

Many adopted children have learning disabilities. They can still be rewarding to parent and actually can be easier to parent and love than a lot of adopted children. The ld often allows for eg specialist schooling, you meet other families who are dealing with challenges, you can claim benefits which can allow you to stay home rather than go back to work. The ld becomes more of an issue than the adoption.

So your son may have a ld but you will still love him and he will still love you xx

I think it’s totally natural that you do overthink it, I really did too! But along the way I’ve realised overthinking it and analysing everything just steals the little moments from me, it doesn’t change what he’s doing.

So (and this is where fake it till you make it can really help!) go in there, be sociable have a lovely time and show him it is a safe space, you can have fun together there and it’s ok to explore and let him be him and do what he needs to do which at the moment sounds like he needs to acclimatise while he’s close to you then test out the world slowly and that’s ok, it’s a tough place to be!

it may be because he’s adopted, it may be because he’s got some degree of learning disability, it may be his personality, but it is because he is most definitely is who he, and that’s ok.

I think as adoptive Moms we do analyse so much because we want to help our lo - as in if x is causing y and we do a it’ll be ok and sometimes that’s right but in a scenario like this it’s ok just to be with him, be a good role model & let him develop over time 💖

on the flip side I made a few mom friends at group who I’m still in contact with and one in particular felt so sad at the time as her lo (same age) just zoomed around (bum shuffling ) with seemingly no awareness whatsoever she was there, at the time I was grateful I had a limpet instead tbh, but fast forward 7 years and they’re so alike in their responses and get on well

It sounds like he is hyper vigilant due to trauma. He sounds overwhelmed and needs to be close to you as you will be helping him to feel safe. When he feels safe to, he will start to explore but only when he is ready, that is why he explores at home and not there. Keep taking him so he can learn people are safe while he has his safe base/person. It shows a strong attachment