5 yearold DS on school ACTION passport , should i take him to the docs ?

[gemcgem]

hi , im a mum to 6 ( hopefully 7 soon ) but my 5 year old son is struggleing really hard at school he's in year 1 but is a late summer baby , still carnt read or wirte !
we carnt do any extra work at home as he's in bed by 6pm , he's such a tired little man after wakeing up during the night for hours talking to him self :S .
he also still throws teribble tantrams like he's 2 not 5 , he has major OCD about how and when he gets in to the car , tea time EVERYTHING !!
should i take him to the docs to find out if theres more to this than learning ??

any advice would be great !
thanks.

My first stop would be school and ask what his behaviour is like while he is there. If they have flagged up some concerns (as the title suggests) I would Then take him to the doctor.
Does school have a learning mentor you could talk to? They are fantastic at pointing you in the right direction, I know the one at my school is.

Why is he waking up so often at night? A child shouldn't be tired. Does he sleep many hours at night? I wonder is there a sleep issue and would it be worth getting it checked out. Sleep deprivation because of a sleep disorder, can lead to behavioral probs, and concentration probs. So much so that it's often misdiagnosed as ADHD.

Does he snore?

Yes, I think you should take him to the GP.

I'd want him seen by a child development paed.

There is definitely more to this than just learning.

thanks , iv spoke to the school nurse , who was not very helpfull !! he does snore !! should that be a worry ??? i dont know why he wakes up .you can get up at 3am and he's a wake just sat talking to himself , and i wonder how longs he been there like that ?? i think the next stop will be the doctors . his teacher has nothing but high praise for him . he's a very caring little boy .

sounds like he has a sleep disorder. can you record/monitor what happens at night for a week or so? and then go to the drs.

we have a camcorder , i may set it up in his room for a week and see what he's up to . thankyou.

It could be a sleep disorder.

But it could also be something else that is causing the sleep problems.

Do you think he has tantrums like a 2 year old because he is exhausted? Or even when he's not tired he behaves like that? Or he's always tired, so you can't tell?

Do you think he's too tired at school to learn? Or he actually has difficulties learning?

I'd want both his behaviour investigated and his sleep problems.

my dd finds it very difficult to get off to sleep at night and so sometimes I put her to bed late espcially when she is very tired and so she tends to sleep longer during the night. maybe he is getting the bulk of his good sleep early on and then waking later. it may be worth trying a later bed time one weekend or during half term and see if his qualty of sleep improves through out the night.

This sounds very similar to my little boy. We had some trouble at school and I took him to the GP who referred him to a community paediatrician. She is still seeing him but has also referred us to child psychology at the hospital.

There are many issues but the psychologists are focussing on his sleep patterns first. We are keeping a log of his sleep pattern eg when he goes to bed, how quickly he settles, when he gets up, what he did before bed etc.

The GP said the school should have referred my ds to the community paediatrician but did it for us instead.

I would definitely see your GP and get the ball rolling as the referrals take a long time.

Feel free to PM meor ask on this thread if you have any questions.

(my ds has just turned 7)