Doc blaming our co-sleeping/extended breastfeeding for 2 yo DD's development issues... I need advice

[eskimomama]

Hello,

My DD is 2 (25 mo) and not speaking at all, not one word. She doesn't respond to her name and doesn't point much either (only in her peppa pig books).

Over the past few months I got awfully worried it could be ASD and managed to get refered to a child psychologist. We saw him in August and now again in November. Back in August he said he wasn't worried for ASD but told me I should try to stop breastfeeding at night (she's a bad sleeper) and also to stop co-sleeping.

We tried a few times but didn't manage, it was way too hard and me and DH were just shattered.

Now in November, nothing has changed. She has started nursery but only 1 hour per day so far as she finds it very hard to adapt. Getting better slowly though.

Her hearing is being checked later this week just to rule out hearing difficulties (she does look a lot at our lips when we talk, and touches our lips when she wants a song).

So today the child psychologist basically told me off for still co-sleeping and still breastfeeding at night when she wakes up. I KNOW it's not ideal but it just happened that way (she had bad eczema as a baby due to milk/egg allergies and woke up all the time scractching, only BFing would calm her down) We also moved around a lot (changed homes 4 times in one year, and overseas) and it might have affected her...who the hell knows.

I think its not very valid to blame co-sleeping and breastfeeding for her development issues... it sounds like a piece of old school advice. Most of my friends who have toddlers co-sleep with them somehow, and many moms do extended bfing too.

I don't think I'm overprotecting her that much.....?

The child psychologist thinks she never learned to separate herself from me (she's only been with me until 2, no baby sitter at all, no nursery until 2) and I should let her cry at night to help her understand she is an individual. He says starting nursery now isn't enough, the change should happen at home too.

I'm confused and not convinced, and if I'm not convinced how can I change things...

Thanks in advance for any shared experience!

I am not familiar with the French healthcare set up but on the UK this would fall under the remit of a community paediatrician I think. Has she had her hearing screened/tested before?

Sooty, the words 'hearing test' must sound to you like a broken record by now

D'oh! Sorry not sooty.

Another vote for utter, utter bullshit here.

Extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping are the norm in many cultures around the world and do not cause developmental delays. End of.

Does she point, engage your attention in things, make eye contact, smile, take an interest in her surroundings?

Hi, Ive not got time to read everything, but Ive worked with kids with developmental delay for 15yrs, and studied at the Tavistock and Portman to MA level, so I know a bit.... Ive also got two boys who both co-slept until they wanted to stop (about 3 1/2) and breast fed until they self weened (about 3 - 31/2).

The world wide average for breast feeding is 4. Co-sleeping is about that too. Many many cultures think western ideas on 'early forced' weening (from bed and breast) are cruel (ie Japan) and see our culture as harsh and uncaring towards our children. WHO recommends breast feeding until 2. Many many medical professionals are extremely uninformed and judgmental about these things.... ask for his sources, and if he has none, ask him to look into the facts and get back to you, and tell him you find it ill-informed and judgmental.

If there are attachment issues, which he could not possibly know in one session, then that is a different matter, and would need addressed. You would need to see someone to have that assessed properly, and get advice and help with it. I would recommend you see someone else, (if you are in london then the Tavistock and Portman is exceptional.... they also have clinics in other places....).

The hearing test is essential, and until then be sure that co-sleeping and feeding is in itself not harming your child, in fact quite the opposite!
Good luck!!

Yes, speech and language therapist is what you need. Go them with the results of the hearing test.

You've has some great advise on this thread. I agree a hearing test should be your number 1 priority but I would also bear in mind that the language of children in a bilingual household does develop differently & it is possible that your dd could be an extreme version of this. A SALT would be able to help with this too.

(my cousin grew up in a bilingual household & he said his first word at 22 months - can't shut him up in either language now though.)

I would be weary of French docs they seem to be a decade behind the rest of the world. GP told me to stop bfing 5 month old overnight as she was "getting into bad habits"!!!

Is this a psychiatrist for sure? They have a great love of psychoanalysts and use them for everything! Get a referral to someone else, the guy, whatever he is, sounds like a total idiot.

The psych is talking nonsense.

Ask for a referral to a developmental paediatrician / social communication clinic - or whatever the equivalent is in France.

Imvho not talking at this age isn't necessarily anything to worry about at the moment. It obv needs to be checked out (hearing test for starters as everyone has said) as by 2yo you would expect some speech. But it is more the non-verbal communication that is important as an indication of normal development. Gesturing, pointing, indicating what she wants, showing you things, bringing you things, getting you to join in her games, playing alongside or even with peers. How are all of these things?

eskimomama my ds4 was pretty late talking, infact at two he really wasnt saying much if anything at all, maybe 'milka' for a feed, and 'diddy; meaning his blanket, he was 3 this march and now doesnt shut up! infact he started talking last summer, basically we went camping with a pretty non verbal 2yr 4mth old and over the 4 days we camped he learnt to say 'tent' and he also started saying colours 'red, blue; green, burple (purple) he was telling us the colours of the tents! so he knew and then all of a sudden that wkend it just clicked, there was gradual improvement from then onwards and now at 3 and a half you would never know he was later talking at all :)

my ds2 was similar as well, ds3 was born when he was 2 and a5mths and he was just starting to talk then, again a year later and you would never have known he was a late talker.

incidentally my ds1 was talking before one and full sentences at 18mths, so i have experienced both, but you cant tell now they are 12, 9 and 6 who spoke first!

get hearing checked, get a referral to a speach therapist, can you talk to a health visitor? a child psychologist is not what you need imo.

oh and mine all eventually stopped bfeeding adn went into their own beds and then their own rooms and sleep fine at night it was a gradual process, with no cc involved, your dd will get there and imo you are doing exactly the right thing :)

It is currently a matter of great dissent whether bilingual children start talking later.

Mine did. Both were well over 2yo before they started to talk.

You should get in touch with other bilingual mothers, particularly British ones, to ask about the French philosophy on this - I know that a German paediatrician told us not to let DD learn French when we moved to Geneva as she already had slight defects in her German accent.

We ignored and she is now trilingual.

I think that the French are quite traditional (ie. old fashioned in comparison to UK) in their child rearing, but pop over to the Living Overseas or Bilingual board to ask others for their experience.

I would definitely look for a bilingual speech therapist. Depending on where you are, this could be tricky but it is vital, imo.

You could do with Moondog, she is a bilingual speech therapist.

Part of their problem is that they have an ungodly fear of a woman's boobs being destroyed by bfing.

I agree with Keepmum about the possible food allergy/intolerance link.

the only bit that rings warning bells is you say you are not sure if dd understands you, op.
if you say 'can you bring the teddy to me, please,dd?' does she respond?
or any other simple command 'lift up your foot so that i can put your shoe on' or 'would you like some juice?'

dd2 was non verbal until around 3, and essentially we had to work towards communication (not necessarily speech). we used 'observe, wait, listen' for a while - and learned makaton, but all the while we were giving her choices and making sure she had plenty of options and was making a choice.

so 'would you like milk, or juice?' and have both of them in sight, gesturing to which is which. and dd might grab for one, or might look at one of them (eye pointing) or might eventually attempt to verbalise... but lots and lots of choices, using something concrete that she can refer to without speech as necessary.

i would agree it isn't unusual with bilingual children, and feck all to do with breastmilk or where she sleeps, but i am concerned that you don't know if she understands you.

the 'choices' and non-verbal communication stuff will also help her to see herself as an individual, always supposing the psych has to be taken into account. and she can make choices that affect her personally. you don't have to decide everything - you gently hand over some of the control to her.

gently though - if she is used to you doing everything for her, deciding when, where, what she eats/ plays with etc, then don't overwhelm her!

Don't have much to add except to say how rubbish that they could think it's bf related and I hope you find some better support!

We are a bilingual household in that dh and dmil speak German to ds and I speak English (mil is Austrian). We also co- sleep and ds is bf at 2.4. He didn't talk much till about 2, although he had some single words before then, but he suddenly started catching up from around 25 months onwards, using two or three word sentences etc. He's still not as eloquent as his peers but improving all the time. Our gp said it was normal to have a 3-6 month delay in bilingual children but recently I looked at the talking point website and they said bilingualism makes no difference. www.talkingpoint.org.uk

Ds's friend who is also 2.4 and bf/co-sleeping is the most eloquent toddler I've ever met, he could be on Radio 4!

thanks again everyone for the precious advice!

Mme Lindor do you live in Geneva? We live very closeby. Would you happen to know a local bilingual speech therapist that you could recommend? (although I suspect they will cost lots and our insurance won't cover Switzerland...)

Freckledleopard and bialystockandbloom she doesn't point very much, she will mostly (if not only) point at characters/objects in her peppa pig books and posters. Otherwise she asks me to join her all the time, or DH if he's around. Sometimes she wants us both to sit down with her on the mat and we sing songs (she touches our lips to say "sing"), and she loves that! She loves peekaboo and tickles, she will always look at her dad straight in the eyes when he tickles her /sings to her.
She brings me things every now and then, and I understand what she wants most of the time, for instance if her bouncy ball is stuck underneath the fridge, she'll bring me there and look under the fridge, that kind of thing.

With peers it depends, sometimes she doesn't mind them but very often she's shy. At the nursery, which she started 3 weeks ago just for an hour a day, she always wants to be in the ladies' arms, she reaches for them, but she doesn't want to sit with other kids very long. But this I think is more linked to the fact she's not used to seeing many kids at a time that much. She's fine with my best friend's DD who is the same age, and her DD doesn't engage at all with her either. So I'm not worried on that side.

keepmumshesnotdumb she was tested negative for wheat last year (both blood and prick tests), and seems fine with bread and pasta... so I never thought she'd be allergic to gluten... I'm not sure how to make sure of it.

well if she fetches you to get things for her and wants you to sing and shows that to you by touching your lips then she is trying to communicate which is all good :) i would keep up with encouraging any form of communication that she does, which i am sure you do and try and get a referall to a speach therapist, it does sound like there may be some underlying issue but nothing to do with bfeeding and co-sleeping!

It sounds to me as though she has reached a crucial communication stage. Hang on, here's someone who can put it better than me:

"By 18 months a child should be warmly engaged and capable of initiative and two-way communication. She should also be able to use complex gestures to communicate what she wants - taking her mother's hand and leading her to the door or toy chest, or pointing, for example. Without the use of words, she should be communicating with her parents, clearly understanding much of what they say to her, and communicating many of her own wishes back. If by 18 months the child can do these things, her gestural communication is developing on track and the building blocks of symbolic expression and language are present. .......The child who has a circumscribed language problem that will take care of itself will be mastering these preverbal gestural communication patterns."

"The Child with Special Needs", Stanley Greenspan, page 386"

If you've any doubts about these milestones, you'll want to consolidate those.

Eskimo
I am near Geneva, yes. PM me where you are, and I will ask around. I am guessing that you will be more likely to find a bilingual therapist in Geneva, cause there are more expats here.

Thank you keepmumshesnotdumb for sharing this, I will look into it, it sounds very interesting. Although DD doesn't have much gluten in her weekly diet (just some pieces of bread/biscuits to munch on every now and then and the odd pasta from my plate - that is if you consider that oats are gluten-free which she has every day).
How old is your DD?

4madboys and lingle thanks for your encouragements!

Definitely a proper hearing test too. I have a hearing loss, not diagnosed till I was over 2. I would jump at loud noises and that sort of thing, but I couldn't distinguish speech sounds into ones that made sense - because hearing loss is not all or nothing, and my loss (not uncommonly) was greatest at the frequencies you need to distinguish speech sounds. Once I had hearing aids, I was off and never looked back. Oh, and I was FF and not allowed into my parents' bed, which has precisely nothing to do with anything!

thanks wolfhound! what caused your hearing loss when you were young? did you learn to speak quickly after you had hearing aids?