Glue ear

[LavenderBlue95]

What symptoms did your child have if they had glue ear as a baby/toddler?

My DS is 15 months and I'm starting to think he may have it but the doctor won't see him face to face just over the phone.

He was saying quite a few words and attempting lots more until about 5/6 weeks ago and he stopped. He keeps playing with his ears a lot and now he will only respond to his name if I shout it or am sat right next to him. He also doesn't respond to noisy toys as much as he did. Other than that he seems fine. Still playing, clapping, waving (can't point just yet), bringing me toys etc.

Glue ear and ear problems run in my family too.

Mine was babbling in an age-appropriate way until around her first birthday when I noticed the babbling dropped off rather than developing. She still seemed to understand what I said to her but wasn't reproducing sounds.

We got her to an ENT and she had pretty bad glue ear. After a while watching and waiting she had grommets put in and almost overnight she started copying sounds. And was also noticeably happier. We got her a few sessions of speech therapy once the grommets were in which also really helped - although felt like she needed a bit of help again when she started at preschool. Her speech was completely normal soon after that.

Forgot to add. He has started to say a couple of the words he said before but they're not clear at all like they were. He used to say doggy, he stopped and now it comes out as either "voggy" or "boggy".

You don’t need to see GP to ask for a hearing check referral. Best to be sure. I think it was the health visitor who sorted out the referral for our kids.

Babbling on time, but speech was utterly shite. For years he was unintelligible. never had an ear or throat infection, never rubbed his ears, responded to us talking to him, and understood us, but probably because it was simple language we were using. Surgeon said his adenoids were the largest she'd seen and his glue ears were phenomenally blocked. He still lisps like crazy but we understand everything.

Same happened with my DD. It didn't resolve and she had grommets. You are describing classic symptoms of glue ear. I'd absolutely push for an ENT referral.