I have a 17 month old DS that has always been on the late side of hitting his milestones. He was 5 weeks premature which may account for some of it but I’d have expected him to have caught up more than he has done by now.
He’s only just been confidently walking for a couple of weeks now and I was so focused on him hitting this milestone I hadn’t paid too much attention to his communication skills. I’ve since googled what he should be doing by 18 months and managed to completely panic and gone down a rabbit hole of ASD traits in toddlers. To where I have spent the last three days over analysing everything my DS does and spending the evenings sobbing while watching YouTube videos of autistic toddlers and slowly feeling like I may be going insane.
I’ve contacted my HV who is going to call me tomorrow to hopefully book him in for a check up but in the meantime, I haven’t slept in three days so I wondered if any of you had a toddler with similar issues and what the outcome ended up being?
- No words yet. We had an attempt at “moo” when pointing to a cow yesterday, he’ll make brrrm noises when pushing his toy car and will occasionally say mamamama, dadadada, babababa or randomly dotdotdot but towards various objects/people so it’s just babbling I think.
- Occasionally responds to name. If he’s watching a tv programe or distracted by a toy (or anything really) there is no chance. Today, just for an example though, his dad came home when he was in the bath and called his name and he turned round and beamed at him. He’ll usually ignore me though unless we are playing hide and seek or something similar.
- No pointing (that I’ve been aware of - didn’t know it was a thing) although have made a conscious effort to point at objects and people over the last few days and he’s started to do the same in the supermarket and at pictures in his story books.
- Understands things like “where is Teddy?” Or “where is Peter? (dog)” but not much else (or he does and it’s just ignored).
- He’s quite happy to play alone for a little while before getting bored and coming to get my attention either on his own or with a toy.
- Currently obsessed with attempting death defying stunts of climbing up and on anything before falling off and expecting to be caught by extremely frazzled me.
- He is very loving and affectionate though. No issues with eye contact with me or his dad. Smiles and makes eye contact with strangers if they talk to him. Not sensitive to loud noises or busy environments. Loves being around other children and will follow and watch older kids and steal other toddlers toys when the opportunity arises but doesn’t really do much else in terms of interacting with them.
- He will brush his teddy’s teeth or pretend to feed him if I initiate the game but not done it yet of his own back. Also really enjoys feeding me or his dad which is fun with his grubby little hands.
- Very bitey. Not with people but mainly with his toys, any hoodie ties and his wooden cot has some chunks missing from where he has been beavering away in the night.
- Lined up two balls next to each other today. Not sure if this is the start of things to come. As I say, starting to feel paranoid and not trusting of my own judgement.
There’s probably loads more I could bore you with and I may do if my memory gets jogged but this is everything I can think of for now. If anyone has any tips on how to encourage talking as well that will also be hugely appreciated. Sorry for the ridiculously long post 😳