ADHD kids - what were the early signs?

[CuriousCat2021]

I think my 2 year old might have ADHD, but I know it’s impossible to diagnose at this age. If your kids have diagnosed or suspected ADHD, what were they like as toddlers and when did you start suspecting it? Did nursery or school pick up on this at all? Any problems at nursery or school?

My LB was always a demanding baby, but is getting more difficult now he’s 2. He’s very high energy, always on the move, very quick to get very upset if he doesn’t get what he wants, sometimes very persistent with his asks, takes ages to fall asleep at night, and has milk allergy and perhaps other food intolerances which we are struggling to unpick. I know none of these are red flags in isolation, so wonder how this compares with other toddlers who did grow up to have it.

Any red flags I should look out for? Were you and your partner always sure, or did you think it was normal toddler behaviour and they’d grow out of it? Any physical health issues, eg allergies/intolerances?
When did you manage to get them any help?

We jumped through hoops for the adhd assessment QB tests interviews questionnaires 3 teachers feedback and scoring sheets waited over a year and got told she didn’t score high enough on theQB test and was just a smidge above “ normal” they completely disregarded all of the teachers feedback and numerous other bits of supporting evidence I sent in too I’m beyond frustrated at the whole process

@Toddlermun123 I agree, unless the neurodivergence is extreme and obvious, it’s really hard to unpick it sometimes, even after a supposedly detailed professional assessment, which is why I can see some people struggling to get a diagnosis. So it’s really hard for us parents to understand what’s NT and what’s not, isn’t it! I see some kids being super hard to parent, but they don’t necessarily fit any ND criteria, and some get a diagnosis but don’t cause much trouble at all. There are so many different ND criteria and questionnaires which I tried to complete and I thought then that if anyone ticks zero on all of those questions, they’d have to check for pulse! And some people may have all the traits but they’ve adjusted to modern life’s requirements so well that they aren’t showing any traits so pretty impossible to diagnose (ever or until life gets more difficult, or they hit a menopause for example). I’ve even read that the assessment companies couldn’t diagnose the child but admitted that if circumstances change in their life and they start struggling more (eg starts secondary school, etc), they may be able to hit the threshold to get a diagnosis then. That sounded crazy to me, but in a way I understand how that can be possible.

The good thing (or maybe the difficult thing) is that diagnosis or not, I found that parental approaches and strategies are pretty much the same: patience, talking, finding together strategies that work, even therapy which I personally think all of us need these days anyway. ND or NT, we probably all need to teach our kids to be aware of their emotions, particularly any big feelings, aware of any difficulties they have, and to find solutions to them. So in hindsight I could probably save myself a lot of agonising whether my child is “normal” or not, and just accept him as a “unique neurotype” which needs me to find an approach that works for him (not that I’ve found all the answers, as I think parenting is always WIP).