I’m a terrible terrible mother

[bottomoftheheep]

I’m feeling so so lost and I’m scared that I won’t ever feel ok again. My 2.5yo has delayed speech and I’m finding myself worrying so much about him and what his future holds that I can’t bear to be around him as his lack of speech and behaviour upsets me so much. What kind of mother can’t be around her own son just because he can’t talk? When he goes to nursery I pick him up in the hope that he has learned a new word or miraculously started talking .

I also have a 6 year old son and a newborn baby daughter and the school holidays have been hard with them all but it’s no excuse. We are having private speech therapy and I have one on one time with him each day but his progress is so slow that I’m starting to dread it. I’m going to access some CBT through work as I’m clearly not ok. I’m just so ashamed that I feel like this.

One of the most eloquent, clever and funny boys I taught at secondary had autism and his parents told me had no words until he was 5. He thrived at High school, always getting top grades and was also a wonderful singer and loved the old crooners songs winning lots of competitions. Whatever happens happens just keep talking to him and follow the clinicians advise. Just like people who worry about their late crawlers or walkers there are very few people who don't learn to talk in the end.

If he can understand speech and express himself well enough that he isn't getting frustrated I really really wouldn't worry. Children develop different skills at different rates and that's totally normal, ds is just prioritising other skills right now. Speech is one of the most obvious, but I'm sure there were times when your 6yo was "behind the average" at something like recognising numerals or balancing on one foot. It's extremely likely ds2 will catch up and talk completely fluently within a few years. If he needs some extra help to get there then you're already getting that for him.

As you have a newborn, your hormones probably aren't helping the anxiety. Don't beat yourself up, you're doing a great job.

My DS had SLT from the age of 27 months for 10 months. He seemed to have a full blown speech disorder. Practically making clicking noises rather than words. I remember my goal was for him just to be able to communicate ‘yes’ because I never knew if he wanted anything. He didn’t make eye contact. Had no linear improvement with therapy. The SLT said he was the most confusing case she’d ever seen. Nursery, weirdly, didn’t think there was anything to worry about but I was so worried. A month before his 3rd birthday he just started talking. By the time his NHS assessment came round, 3 months later they said there was a mild language delay and questions about social skills but not severe enough for a referral. It’s so bizarre. I’m so glad it’s resolved but I wish I knew whether it was just time or whether the therapy helped.

2.5 is so so young. So much changes in 6 months at that age. I hope you get the support you need.

He sounds very much like my son at that age. He used to use odd words for things like juice was “key” and his pronunciation was poor. He is 7 now and his speech is fine!

I wouldn’t worry too much from what you said about his other areas of development. Definitely seek some CBT though about how you are feeling, it can really help.

@bottomoftheheep I feel like I’m reading my own story back when I read your posts! Mine and my DDs early years experience feels near identical to all you’ve written. It’s quite spooked me to read!
my DD was fobbed off repeatedly by ENT and between that and covid, followed by me losing my shit and paying privately to see an ENT consultant meant that she was 5 before anyone really acknowledged her hearing was fucked due to glue ear and that she needed surgery/grommets.
please trust your instincts and push….whilst her soeach surged massively just before her 3rd bday and she seemingly caught up very well, very quickly (because glue ear can wax and wane she had great spells of being able to here and had blocks of catching up as it were….) the first year or so of school were hard for her as she couldn’t hear sounds properly so couldn’t learn phonics and how to spell words easily at all. Her great teachers supported enormously but I’d have given anything for those grommets to have happened sooner!!
your LO will no doubt surprise you one day by coming out with tonnes of new words (mine works me at 3am once, summonsed me to her room and proudly declared she could count to 30 (And showed me there and then!) and that she loved rhubarb!! I almost fell over that she could suddenly say all that!
I know how hard it is, and the worry you must be experiencing. Truly, I really do. Your posts took me back to what felt like a dark time, but trust me, there is light ahead. You’re far from a bad mum if you worry and care this much too!! Xx

Firstly, you are not a terrible mother. You clearly care so much!

I follow camilla Thurlow (from love island) on Instagram and if you go to a post of hers on the 16th of April and read it - it’s a beautiful account of having, as she puts it, a child on their own timeline. Her child is non verbal and has only recently started walking at over two. Please read! Sending hugs

@RiaOverTheRainbow thie is really reassuring thank you. He has excellent gross and fine motor skills, his main frustrations come from not being able to work a toy correctly (ie if he can’t fit a puzzle piece in a jigsaw) rather than not being understood. I always know exactly what he wants, the speech therapist said he has developed his own communication system which we are somewhat stuck in and he sees no reason to defer away from because it’s working for him!

@Hartleyhare1206 thank you for your lovely message and I’m glad that your daughter got the help she needed in the end. I don’t really know what to think right now as I don’t know if I’ve convinced myself that it’s glue ear because it has a ‘solution’ compared to the unknown. If that makes sense. But I had grommets as a child, so did his Dad, and my eldest had them at the end of last year. So glue ear runs in the family!

You sound like a lovely caring mum. As others have said you have an awful lot to contend with at the moment and with a new baby I would question whether the severity of your anxiety about being around your 2.5 yr old is related to PND. My 2 dds had glue ear and neither could pronounce their words clearly when they were very young. They both ended up having grommets and the speech came on in leaps and bounds. Neither had many words at your child’s age and now I can’t keep them quiet! I did worry about their speech a lot. I remember some one saying don’t worry how many adults do you know who can’t speak?! It’s easy to look back with hindsight and say it will all be fine. I think if you fast forward another year or two these worries will be behind you.

@Graceymac99 thank you that has really helped and put things into perspective. I have a CBT triage call in the morning to get the ball rolling with some sessions as they helped me when I had some post natal anxiety when my 2.5 year old was a baby (there’s a theme here 🤣)

My now 4 year old was a slow talker at 2.5. He also had glue ear and numerous ear infections. He had two operations in his ears to solve the glue ear issue and that's now stopped. His speech is a little delayed now at 4 but it has really exploded this last year. We are under speech and language therapy too as he had a phonological disorder but it's really coming on now.

I hope that gives you some help.

The specialist needs to do some more research. She is spouting old tropes about eye contact and empathy. Lots of people with ASD can do those things.

@bottomoftheheep first to say I have only read your OP so hope the thread has not moved and makes this out of turn.
But my DS barely spoke before he was three, he had his own versions of some words but mainly just didn't speak. We had his hearing checked out as I was concerned he had glue ear, all came back clear, and then when he was 3 he started talking.

His speech came on him leaps and bounds but wasn't always clear and even now at nearly 7 I have to ask him to repeat himself at times, but he is a complete chatterbox and I just think his brain works quicker than his mouth can. I think this was also the case when he was little, he was too busy watching and doing things to have time to talk and I wonder if this could be the same for your little boy?

My DS also had a new baby brother at the same time and an older sister who would tell everyone what he wanted so there was almost no need to talk as far as he was concerned. Sounds like a lot of parallels to your situation, I hope it can be of some reassurance to you.

That is really reassuring and seems to be a lot of parallels. Thank you.

I just feel like I can’t ever imagine him properly talking but don’t know if that’s the dark spiral I’ve managed to push myself into 😥

I'm in the same boat with my little girl she has no words whatsoever and is the same age as your boy. I also have a 5 year old and a baby and it can be hard. I'm awaiting surgery for grommets to be inserted not sure if that is the actual problem as she won't participate in a hearing test but has had glue ear at every appointment so they are going to just do the surgery anyway. I cry all the time about it so your not alone x

@bottomoftheheep

I know what you mean about talking
yourself in to thinking it’s ears as that’s solvable, and worrying you’ll miss an actual reason… I can remember going to a gym class and waiting in the carpark googling kids not talking and reading a post about a child who couldn’t speak and was diagnosed with a genetic developmental condition that meant they couldn’t walk or talk. Didn’t get to finish the thread before the class started so kept reading snatched bits during drink breaks. I then got in to such a frenzy during the class that I’d been kidding myself about her ears and that she had a life limiting condition and would never reach life milestones etc, that I suddenly burst in to tears and ran out of the class in a total state.

like I say, I found it a very dark time. But it very genuinely (and obviously!) was her hearing at fault and as I said earlier, she had surges in speech during spells where the glue reduced and her consultant confirmed that her failed hearing tests and amount of glue in her ear was absolutely enough to cause speech issues.

Even her speech therapist was insistent that the way she pronounced the sounds she could make supported the lack of hearing
theory. She initially suggested teaching DD makaton and when she tried, DD ignored the hand gestures and instead tried to copy the therapists mouth movement instead! She felt that DD absolutely wanted to talk and understood the necessity of doing so, Just couldn’t as she had an obstacle
preventing it (ie not being able to hear!!) she then abandoned the makaton plan and
worked intensely with dd on sound formation which made such a difference.

DD learnt lots of new words and could speak “well” by 3 but it was actually then we realised her pronounciation that was the real problem ie/ said baboos rather than bubbles, oof oof instead of woof woof, haboo instead of happy etc

How long has he been seeing the speech pathologist and how often does he see them? My middle DS started weekly speech therapy at 4.5 and he basically made no progress for about 8 months and then it was like it started to click and he made progress more rapidly after that.
At 2.5 I'd expect progress to be even slower, there's a lot of concentration and attentiveness needed to do all the correct tongue and lip placement. It was pretty amazing seeing how much needed to go into teaching someone to speak when the sounds didn't come automatically. I had to a lot of work with him outside the weekly sessions too.
We actually saw a speech pathologist at 3.5 and he was diagnosed with severe delays in both receptive and expressive speech. He was very hyperactive at that age and they said given his behaviour it wouldn't be worth starting speech therapy yet and to come back when he was over 4. My youngest also had severe expressive speech delays, but not receptive speech delays and started speech therapy at 4. He was able to concentrate better than his brother and made progress more rapidly and didn't need all the extra home practice to progress.

It's really individual and can be an incredibly frustrating and hard process. Especially with my middle DS I was very worried about his future. He couldn't talk clearly at 5, seemed to understand very little, had severe melt downs, couldn't count to 10 or write his name. Had 18 month to 2 year delays in every major developmental area, gross and fine motor, social, communication, personal care, cognitive delays, everything he was 18-24 ?months behind and thats a lot at 5. We're a world away from that 5 years on. He talks clearly and endlessly, has finished speech therapy and is topping his year in maths and history and has a big group of friends and everyone loves him. It feels impossible and overwhelming and hopeless, but the darkness passes, you find a way through it.

Oh my days I could have written this myself. I will go off on a Google tangent and read about some genetic disorder and convince myself that’s what it is. I was physically sick last night with worry. I realise it’s really not healthy.

Our speech therapist is also adamant that his hearing is impacting his lack of speech, particularly because he will always looks at your mouth when you are speaking to him, and the sounds he makes (and doesn’t make) are consistent with fluctuating hearing loss She also thinks his adenoids might be a factor as he is a mouth breather and always has his mouth open, affecting the sounds he can make. He has made some slow progress over the summer which could be down to his glue ear clearing, but now he has a cold and it’s like he’s a different child again. I’ve also got the support of National Deaf Children’s Society who have been incredibly helpful.

Despite all this I’m still constantly doubting it and thinking ‘what if’ and Googling anedoctes from other people. I’ll read something that makes me feel better for 2 minutes then doubt will creep into my mind and I’ll Google something else and go down an awful rabbit hole.

I really appreciate your kind words ❤

Definitely get his eyes tested. That was the cause for my son. He caught up quickly after getting glasses. The Health Visitor arranged his eye test at the hospital so worth giving them a call.

He has only seen them twice (six week gaps) so I probably am expecting too much of him. But I’ve been working with him every day one on one and have seen improvement (so have nursery) in his babbling and trying to talk. But like I said above he now has a cold and he’s shut up shop again. Which makes me think it is related to his ears. But I literally can’t trust any thought I have right now, it seems like rationality has gone straight out the window.

Your DS’s story made me have a little tear. So inspiring and how proud of him you must be. Thank you for your lovely words x

@bottomoftheheep adenoids and tonsils were removed along side grummets here too.

not sure if it’s because of the hearing resolution or the adenoids being removed but her speach is waaaayyyy less nasal and much clearer.

we didn’t have the op until DD was 6 so
it took 4 years to get to that stage (covid of course made that way worse) but like I say, regardless of the quality of the speech, her language and vocab really picked up in phases from 2y 11 m to about 3 1/2. Preschool worked closely with our therapist and they were over the moon by her improvements and she started school speaking well - but still with dodgy pronounciation. The biggest issue though was that she couldn’t hear and replicate certain sounds to aid her reading/writing and phonics - eg she couldn’t learn the Ch sound as she heard it as T and then repeated that - so chair was tair - so phonics and learning to write the words was a right old mess. I do think it reaching that stage, coupled with awful attendance due to repeated infections was what triggered the move from watchful waiting to action NHS wise, but it should never have been left so long or got to that stage in my opinion.

Oh and yes, try to stay away from Google! Xxxx

My boy was exactly the same

My ds was unintelligible at his two year check and referred for speech therapy. His speech was so bad he continued having speech therapy until year 2 at school (we paid a private therapist who went into school and saw him every few weeks). It wasn’t at all clear until he was in upper primary and there were still a few issues and hitches in his speech when he went into secondary.

last month he passed 10 GCSE’s, 7 of them were A’s or A stars. He speech is now great, although he still has a tendency to speak too fast and garble his words a bit. My point is, I know it seems incredibly worrying now, and it may even take a long time to improve, but it is incredibly likely that he will eventually overcome it and it likely will have no impact on academic ability overall, especially as he is already doing well on all his other indicators.

Exactly the same for my son too. Glue ear is awful and can cause significant deafness.

With my DS it was a tongue tie I beat myself up about. Whether that was the issue, why hasn't I got it cut when it was discovered at 6 months, was it my fault he was going through this. Because of the process where I live we saw a couple of different speech pathologists and they couldn't agree on whether it was an issue or not either. It's hard to say with his ears, days when they didn't sleep well or were sick things would go backwards for a bit till they were well again, so it could just be that as much as anything else. I would look to get him seen by an audiologist if he hasn't seen one already to test for response to various frequencies which may help pin point if it's because of his ears, it's probably a bit of both.

It is a long process learning to speak when it's not automatic, I think you're expecting too much of both of you. This is something really hard you're going through. There is grief and loss and fear for your LO. You question everything, especially yourself, nothing feels certain, you want so desperately just to fix it for them. You feel like you need to have it all worked out now this moment or you're failing them, but you don't need to and you are not failing him. Try to remember he's really little so you have time on your side to figure this out with the help of your speech pathologist and any other relevant specialists. You worked out he needed help really early, you're doing good, you really are and you will find a way through it, it might just take a bit of time.