Smile / nod moments

[MiladyDeSummer]

I had a good one today. Discussing DS aged 3 who has never been to the dentist.

HV said, "oh do make sure sure that you brush his teeth after his milk at bedtime because of sugars in the milk"

He had six small drinks of milk last night from the time he fell asleep to the time he woke up for the day and that's a really good night for him (and us)

It's the only way to get him through without him waking up in anger and it's also the only protein-rich food he will consider ingesting.

He doesn't like sweets or chocolate but the Melatonin he has been prescribed looks pretty sugary to me and nobody seems to think that's bad so I'll pass on the brushing his teeth every couple of hours while he's in bed.

No need to tell HV that unless she's offering to have him for the night I think.

What planet are these people on?

From a GP about my non-verbal autistic 11 year old ds: "It's not that he can't speak, he just doesn't want to".

Nod, smile, grit teeth...

unbelievable.

I had a gem form my hv once.

dd1 has issues with drinking. she once stopped, completely, for 9 months - not a drop of fluid passed her lips voluntarily

so, we spent most of that 9 months trying to find somehting acceptable for her to drink, and something acceptable for her to drink form (according to dd1's standards)

we manged it, barely, and she grudgingly accepted one of the millions of choices we offered.

so, there i was, at baby clinic with dd2, and dd1 had her drink - a lunchbox sized carton of pear/pineapple juice. the only thing she would even consider drinking.

hv said "oh, you really should consider watering that down. it's not good for her to drink straight juice. think of her teeth. not to mention her tummy - I bet she goes through gallons of that, doesn't she? it'll be the sweetness. children should drink water or milk. blah, blah, blah"

this was the same hv who had been advising me for nearly a year on how to get dd1 drinking again. (and no, she wasn't going through gallons of it a day - 100ml max, if we were lucky - her teethe were the least of my worries at that point!)

I think the problem is that hv's or indeed any of the professionals do not have extended or personal knowledge of any one child so they can only give very general and superficial advice - however when a child has SN this approach is often worse than no advice at all.

at these stories.

willow I agree. Very superficial and general advice such as cutting sandwiches into shapes for a fussy eater. Never mind that they don't eat bread, spread or filling

I asked about the MMR booster today because my son was very ill after his initial one. I qualified it with, "he did have autistic traits before but he ate everything and had none of the the bowel / gut problems he has now"

Was met with, "Oh I remember all that. The doctor was struck off"

I have promised to discuss it with a doctor.

"joyfully trilled"

That sums it right up twt.

Your poor DC

The HV today asked me to keep a record of DS' constipation which I said would be easy enough as he has the opposite problem which I have explained again and again and to infinity and beyond.

Then I was told not to give him any fruit.

He eats THREE foods, milk and fruit. Not an excessive amount but what a normal toddler would have.

I think the best one for me was being advised by the school nurse to get a piano for my ds to stop him from stimming and to calm him down (this after she asked me if he had long fingers!(
She also helpfully suggested we try to get him to wind down after tea to combat his (lack of) sleep problems.

I have posted this before but it is worth posting again :)

I was told by a proffesional that if I could see a meltdown due to happen.. Say on the way home from school, that I should distracted it in it's midst by taking ds2 for a suprise outing on the way home!

< thud>

Here's another from a social worker, when I mentioned the amount of MESS ds made was getting me down:

"Well, he's just a typical boy then, isn't he?"

...which is why I'm spending his next two days in respite scrubbing away the poo smears, nappy-shreddings, pollock-esque smatterings of gunk all over the furniture and 3-D dried-on blodges of ricecake/spit all over the walls, doors, stairs, etc.

Respite? My Arse.

Smile (wearily) etc

Thanks

I could comment on all of these but ROFL at sexybrunette's school nurse "helpfully" suggesting a wind-down after tea before bed

As if that hasn't ever occurred to a parent

just had pyschiatrist give me two annecdotes about kids who 'could' talk but 'didn't need to, so chose not too' (neither of them had any LD) apparently teaching him to sign so he has even a little communicatio has given him 'the soft option'

smile

nod

wait for him to leave and then dob him in and refuse to have any contact with him again.... PRAT!

We had a schoo nurse suggest I tire my boys out in the holidays by letting them loose in a field for a run around.

Er, allllrighty, then.

And I've had other suggestions that I give DS1 lots of exercise. OK, so we do try and make sure he at least has a little walk, each day, even if the weather's a bit dire. I didn't smile and nod at that one, though and explained that when DS1 is very physically tired, he's still hyperactive but irritable with it and becomes quite unpleasant to be around as he's constantly craving deep pressure and is pretty much crawling the walls. He also ends up too tired to sleep and is worse the next day as a result of poor sleep. So it's just Not That Simple!

"He's just attention seeking because of the new baby"

What, he's leaving a nice game of one - to - one playdoh with him mummy to go and repeatedly flush things down the toilet on his own because he's attention seeking, because of a brother that I'm not even convinced he has registered the existance of?

nod-smile.

Am only recording this in case I look back in years to come and realise how "useful" GPS are...

THis morning, whilst dictating the referral to community paediatrics, and including the bullet points I had listed (ie, some of ds issues) in said referal because he "didn't know anything about autism" (and spent less than 5 minutes with us)
...

"mind you, he looks just fine to me."

I don't smile and nod, I am not experienced enough, instead, I just get totally worried that I am making everything up.

Maybe the world is full of people having endless conversations about what minute on what date on what day something will happen / did happen, and making sure all food stuffs are separated and COLD, and having to notice and discuss the name of every street we ever go along, and having to encourage their DS's to remove their hands from their ears and not be scared, and having conversations about how loud numbers are, and reminding their children NOT to wash their hands so much, and having to explain that just becasue he thinks all of x type of toys needs to be in x specific place, the other children at his school would actually all like to use those things, and persuading him that painting is not actually a tantrum worthy event, and that he really should NOT read the school story book to the class while the teacher is trying to get them all to look at the pictures etc etc etc etc and I am just a crap parent / the school is a bit mad for suggesting he may have a problem.

A couple of years back I had to take Ds2 to the GPs and of course Ds1 had to come with us. Ds1 spent the time ignoring what was going on, ignoring the toys and opening the curtains round the bed over and over. The GP, making conversation, asked what school he went to, so I told him and said he had ASD.
"Who gave him that diagnosis?" asked the GP in total astonishment. Bear in mind he'd just seen Ds1 for less than three minutes.
I wasn't in the mood for smiling and nodding, so I told the GP that he could "just talk to Ds1".
Two minutes later I took pity on the man's futile attempts. Ds1 was answering him, but with hardly any relevance to what was being said.