Tongue tie - help please!

[haribolover30]

Hi all,

When my DD (now 6mo) was born, it was noted during her initial check over that she had a tongue tie. A youngish doctor said she would need to go to Norwich (our closest) to get it snipped.
When we were discharged, the midwives and health visitor checked it and said that unless she had problems feeding, we didn't need to worry. They were quite strong in their opinions on that!
She has taken to a bottle for one feed a day (so my OH can do it) and feeds with me during the day. She has only only ever fed for 4 or so minutes at a time and is very much a snacker!
Anyway, it's now coming to weaning and I'm increasingly seeing the lack of movement in her tongue and the inability to move it much. This worries me that it will affect her eating and I know later down the line it can affect speech.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Is it worth doing either on the NHS or private?
I'm happy to pay and would rather get it done sooner rather than later if it's going to cause issues.
Any advice welcomed please ☺️
Ps. Before any opinionated people ask - we did push it initially but the HV and midwives were so firmly against it unnecessarily and also both my daughter and I were recovering from sepsis so it wasn't our top priority since she was gaining weight!

As a Speech Therapist we advise families not to worry about speech. If she has enough movement for feeding, she will have enough movement for speech. So focus on if her eating is OK. Good luck working out what to do for the best

Sorry - when I say young ish doctor - the MW and HV felt that newly qualified doctors always say to get it done and they felt frustrated with it and they disagree with them. Just for context! ☺️

Thank you @BendingSpoons 💗

No expert at all but my son had a 50% posterior tongue tie that was snipped three times!!! but was never truly successfully sorted- breastfeeding remained difficult until he grew much larger (over a year old basically). He was fine when weaning onto solids though. And now at 7, his speech is completely fine and he can stick his tongue out really far 😂 much more so than his older sister who didn't have tongue tie.

I once had a conversation with a maxillofacial surgeon who remained unconvinced of the benefits of snipping tongue tie- this is a long time ago and I can't remember what he said.

I wouldn't worry now, anyway OP. Like I said my son had a fairly significant tie, snipping only helped marginally but you'd never know he'd had problems with it.

Just to add to my comment above regarding speech: The sound that requires the most tongue movement is probably 'th' where your tongue sticks out slightly between your teeth. This doesn't actually require much movement as only the very tip of the tongue needs to poke out. (I'd recommend talking to yourself to try!).

I'm not convinced TT needs snipping of you have managed to breastfeed (bf is trickier than ff with TT), but for balance I will say other similar threads to this often have parents saying they were happy they got it snipped as they felt it was relatively minor.

Thank you @BellatrixOnABadDay and @BendingSpoons for taking the time to reply.
I really appreciate the advice!

@BellatrixOnABadDay I'm glad to hear it didn't affect speech and the tongue can be stuck out haha! My OH "well maybe it has some perks" 😂 after I was worried she wouldn't be able to. Wouldn't want to deprive her of lots of ice cream eating at the beach in her childhood!

@BendingSpoons good to hear about the th. This is one of the things that was concerning me. I am a primary teacher and have been for years and have seen many children with speech issues who have struggled to pronounce sounds and words and have therefore struggled with their reading and writing. Those have been extreme cases though!

Thank you both. You've made me feel better already 🤗

My son has a 100% tongue tie and like you it was noted by the MW at the hospital as soon as he was born. They're not snipped in the county I live in and as such we would have had to pay privately for it to be done which I refused to do. I was assured by the MW and HV that it would stretch and that I wasn't to worry. He didn't latch on and I had no end of trouble trying to breast feed however we managed ok with a bottle. We never had any issue with solid food.

When he was 3, he was sent to a specialist at my insistence because he dribbled and lisped when he talked, something I was adamant was because of the tongue tie. She was lovely and gave me some brilliant exercises for him to help with his dribbling and over time it eased.

He's now almost 9 and you'd never actually know he has a tongue tie at all. He has excellent movement in his tongue (something that was inhibited at first) and he no longer lisps. I have so much empathy for you because I was where you are now, 8 years ago. It gets better I promise but if you feel there might be a problem as baby gets older, you can insist on seeing someone for more help. Good luck xx

@haribolover30 i know this was a while ago now but I was wondering how you got on with your baby and weaning? We have started and I don’t think he has good tongue function (previously got TT snipped twice!)

@BendingSpoons after your child had a third snip did it reattach again? Our baby’s has reattached for a second time and I’m not sure if it’s worth cutting a third time now

Sorry I meant that last bit for @BellatrixOnABadDay