Hello,
So my 3.5 year old has always been behind on his development. He didn't walk until he was 2.5. His speech consists of easily less that 50 words. He doesn't speak in sentences. No one can understand him most of the time (including myself and dad!). He still babbles a lot. We say that 'he speaks a lot for someone that doesn't know many words'. We find he 'babbles' a lot, then throws in the occasional word/name that we understand, but it doesn't make the sentence any clearer 😆.
He has had a HV helping along the way but it genuinely seems like he just wants to do things at his own pace (which I'm fine with)!
A few things I'm concerned about... a few weeks ago, he shut the stair gate on our dog as our dog was walking through. He yelped because he'd got trapped. We shouted 'NO' straight away and rushed over but as I was rushing over to stop him, he continued to repeatedly shut the gate on our dog, laughing every time the dog yelped. He was not phased by me raising my voice at him. He was still laughing. I pulled him away and explained that we must not do that. Problem is, he doesn't really understand many words, so I tried to be very expressive with my voice and face, spoke to him in a very serious, stern tone. Luckily, he hasn't done this since BUT he does still chase the dog, trying to hit him. I regularly tell him off for this and I'm always demonstrating how he should be treating the dog, but it doesn't work. I keep the stair gate shut so our dog can escape to another room if he wants, where our 3.5 year old can't get to.
Following on from the above, he's really not phased by any sort of discipline (no, we DO NOT use any sort of physical discipline, I would NEVER do this). But I mean, we raise our voice, we try talking to him calmly and nicely, we show him what he should be doing, removing him from situations, putting him in timeout etc. He's not bothered. In fact, when I raise my voice, he smiles or laughs, it's almost like he can't read/understand my emotions.
He seems to get quite angry/annoyed when his younger brother cries. He will go over and scream in his younger brothers face and hits him. Or sometimes, it seems like he gets overwhelmed with the crying so he starts, what we call 'scream crying' which is exactly how it sounds.
We find that when he has these 'scream crying' moments (for whatever reason) we cannot get him out of it, no matter what we do. There's been a lot of days where he's got into a bad mood for whatever reason and we're doomed for the rest of the day because he has and will continue to scream and cry for the whole day, no matter what.
We also feel like he has no sense of danger (my mum says its normal, but I personally didn't experience it with my eldest). His grandparents took him to some nature place where there was a big, deep lake. They said he ran straight in with absolutely no hesitation, got as far as waist deep before they grabbed him. But he wasn't phased by this at all. On my eldest boys school run, I'll have youngest in pushchair, eldest walks nearby, 3.5 year old either holding my hand or has reins on. He often has tempers about holding my hand, so he'll throw himself on the floor, so to save any upset, I let him walk independently until we get to a road, where I'll hold his hand, but very often, he'll have a temper and throw himself down in the middle of the road (even if cars are coming), I eventually have to literally drag him across the road just so I can get him out of the road quickly (hence why I have now resorted to reins - although he does try to throw himself on the floor occasionally).
He's always had a bad temper, I remember one time he was just screaming and crying at the top of his lungs when he was almost 2, I was trying everything I could, but nothing worked and I was admittedly getting overwhelmed and quite angry (I was heavily pregnant) I put him in his cot so we could both try and calm down in a safe environment. I was watching him on his baby cam and he was repeatedly banging his head off his cot.
Please don't judge me, I am struggling so much already and trust me, I blame everything on myself, so I don't need any more blame.
I'm not even necessarily asking for advice, I just feel like I've been holding things in for so long and I don't really have anyone to talk to. But it would be nice to know if anyone has experienced similar and if there was any outcome (such as a diagnosis of sorts?) because I really feel like (i know you shouldn't compare children, but sometimes, it's just so easy to when you're trying to find answers to things) that he's so different from my other 2 children and very different from other children his age.