Tongue Tie

[Melly]

Hi everyone. Can anyone give me any advice or thoughts about tongue tie. My 7 month old dd has "quite severe tongue tie" however I haven't had any real problems with her so far, apart from her taking ages and ages to breast feed when she younger (apparently tongue tie can cause problems with breast feeding). HV mentioned it at her 7 month check last week and said that sometimes an operation is needed to free up the tongue. Have "surfed the web" and found a bit of info. but nothing like hearing from others who have experienced this.

My son (3 in March) has tongue-tie. Every problem he's had eating I've put down to that, but according to HV and paed mostly an operation is only done these days is if tongue-tie affects speech. He also had glue ear (now got grommets) and was seeing the speech therapist due to that. He got discharged by her last week!! He is now one of the clearest speakers of his age at playgroup.

I can't remember him having problems b/feeding, but I was only able to feed him for 8 weeks due to poor milk supply. He had trouble using any sort of beaker, eventually we settled on an Anyway Up cup.

MandyD thanks for your feedback. Very interesting what you say about the trouble with using a beaker. I have posted a message on the food section chat today saying that dd is unfortunately still having her water from a bottle because I can't get her to take a beaker. I know this is bad but I am worried about her not having enough to drink....if she tries a beaker she ends up just playing with the spout and tipping most of the water down her front! I have tried 3 different sorts of beaker, so maybe I will give the anyway up cup a try, are they widely available i.e Mothercare? I live in quite a rural area and tend to get most things on line!

A fairly guaranteed source of Anywayup Cups is Tescos (not on their website tho). www.urchin.co.uk do them online, another thing on their site that is well worth a try, probably when your dd is a little older (I was desperate to buy one when my son was younger and the speech therapist suggested drinking from an open cup) - I couldn't find them anywhere - is the Doidy cup. Sometimes babies/toddlers who have problems with beakers take to these brilliantly. If you're concerned about tooth decay, remember that the sucking technique for an Anyway Up cup is pretty much the same as using a bottle, IMO!!

• WendyM, advice please!! -

They may have Anywayup Cups in Mothercare, but another you might try from there is the Avent Magic Cup. Rather than the "crosshair" valve being in the spout, it has a valve disk in the top beneath the spout so it's removable. If a child is happier sucking hard on a cup (maybe a trait of tongue tie?) then leave the valve in, subsequently you can remove it to give a freer flow of juice. The Magic Cup spout doesn't seem to flood juice out like some of the hard plastic ones though. As I said, we went through 8 types of cup & beaker with the same problem. It's a shame I sold them recently as a job lot otherwise you could have had the set for evaluation!

Do get your daughter to copy you sticking your tongue out as far as it will go, down your chin. In most cases of tongue-tie the ligament under the tongue will stretch in the early years, so practice as early as you can. And practice the phonic sounds too - ah, buh, cuh etc to exercise the tongue.

My son still can't lick an ice cream properly but he's worked out his own strategies on that one! And a lewd auntie said just after he was born "well, he'll never be able to please a woman..." but what the heck?! Now, 3 years on, his tongue has lost most of its "divided" appearance altogether.

My ds has tongue tie and we were initially v.worried as the spanish paed said he would need an operation and would have problems with speech, feeding etc. An english paed then said that the problem often corrects itself by stretching so not to worry too much at this stage. It may affect speech, but only certain sounds, (the ´t´ I think). So far at 9 mths ds hasnt had too many problems.

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my little one had a v. tight tongue tie that our g.p. thought would 'stretch' or rub away as his teeth came thru. over the next year or so it sort of got put on the back burner and as his speech developed he was never particularly clear, but had also had glue ear both sides so what with that and babyish sounding speech we didnt put it down to his tongue. By three years he was eating ok and talking well but not always pronouncing words correctly he had learnt to accomodate and i guess we had let this be acceptable too. wellwe started to think about his tongue again and realised when he was having a strop with his older brother that he just couldnt stick his tongue out as far!
we saw 2 people re remedying this. the first was a dentist who said he would cut and stitch with a general aneasthetic.....we were put off due to a nasty previous stitching problem, so we then saw an absolute dream of a man at the portland who did give our ds a ga but cortorised instead so no stitching. i was v. nervous due to previous ga and stitching mishaps but all went well and he was back in his room 25 mins later! after a couple of hours kip he ate some food!! and now is so pleased at being able to stickhis tongue out as far as his big bro!!. his speech immediatley in some instances improved, but also an area that was raised by our man at the portland was the importance of mouth hygiene, so now he can wipe his tongue around the inside of his mouth to clear food debris etc which is something most of us can do without even thinking about it, so its not just for speech benefits.
hope this makes sense a bit garbbled as usual!!

Modaddy, thanks for the info. Glad to hear your little one is fine now. I really appreciate hearing how others have got on because I feel that although my GP and HV are really very nice, they haven't exactly been that forthcoming with information about tongue tie. I am a medical secretary and obviously have access to a certain amount of info from work but again sometimes I think you are only told the bare minimum. I prefer to know the score up front. In particular what has slightly annoyed me is that I found out at a coffee morning that tongue tie can sometimes affect breast feeding and through Mumsnet that this is what could be causing my dd problems in getting to grips with a beaker, this information I feel should have been passed on from the HV, especially when I took dd for her 7 month review/developmental check. Thank goodness for the wisdom of other mums! Thanks again for everyone who has responded to my posting.

My son is 2yrs 2 mths, I saw the health visitor when he was 22 mths as he only had a handful of words and some were not clear and being pronounced strangely. She referred him for a hearing test and speech therapy assessment. The first hearing test he failed on the left side, the second hearing test he was completely uncooperative, the speech therapist has said he has slight delay and should be seeing him again in august, when he was also have another hearing test. In the meantime in conversation with a friend who is a health professional suggested tongue tie to me, today I have been reading about tongue tie and I think my son fits into it, he dribbles constantly, the sounds he cannot make are d, s, t, l, he says 'gag' for 'dad' he says belly, but the ll's sound like a y, he can poke his tongue out but he won't let me look in his mouth, he will not let me brush his teeth and he doesn't really brush them either, he puts the brush in his mouth and sucks the brush, after what I have read tonight I will be making an appointment with the GP.

My ds is 8 months and had a tongue tie which we had corrected at 1 month. The earlier you have it done the easier, as when they are little no GA or stitches are needed. We saw an Ent consultant, and were literally in and out in 5 mins- I just held his arms, nurse opened his mouth and dr snipped with a pair of rounded scissors. No blood, nothing, he didn't even cry.
We got it done as we were having some latching on problems while bf-ing. The Drs attitude was it's really simple and no risk, and will rule out a future source of speech problems, so why not just do it. Midwives used to routinely do it themselves immediately after birth it is such a minor procedure. But if you leave it too long, it then becomes a much more major thing.

I'd say ask your gp for an ent referral and if it's simple just go for it.

ds had a tongue tie and i was in agony feeding - which was how it was diagnosed.
he had it snipped at 5 weeks, but feeding didnt get better so i switched to ff.
the people at the hosp said that if its snipped before 12mo then its just a quick snip - if they're older then its a general anaesthetic job!!

anyhow i noticed that he never stick his tongue out and we had terrible trouble moving onto lumps when weaning.
i felt sure that they hadn't snipped it properly but by then he was over a year so i left it, in a sort of wait and see approach.

when he was about 14mo he fell one evening. hes a rough and tumble boy who's pretty tough but he howled - despite not bumping anything.

the next day he was obsessed with his tongue - grabbing it and sticking it out at every opportunity!

i am convinced the fall dislodged the tie iyswim and did a far more effective job that the hospital!

i've had 2 babies with tongue tie, difficulty feeding both of them, but only found out the first had it after i stopped bf. so he was never snipped
second baby had his snipped at 3 weeks

round here they will ONLY snip if it is interfering with feeding because it doesn't always cause problems with speech etc

as they get older they will need a GA to have it done, so if I were you I would leave it tbh esp if it isn't causing any feeding problems
a lot of the time they stretch by themselves anyway
my eldest son has fantastic speech despite his