Community Paed.

[Merlin123]

hello all.
I am new to mumsnet and am after some advice please.

My four year old adopted daughter has been referred to the community paed.
We have our first meeting next week and i am unsure what to say.

She is delayed with her toileting. Is very impulsive. She has alwayys been a poor sleeper. She will totally ignore me.
Nursery are also having problems too.

She was a drug dependant baby and her birth mother also misused alcohol.
Any advice on how to approach this first meeting would be greatfully received.

be brutally honest, I know myself I found this hard as if felt like betrayal to my son but the paed can help the most if she knows the facts. Ask the nursery to write a brief description about all her problems so you have less to remember and dont feel like you are making it up.

I would also suggest writing down the key things that concern you (we didn't, and DH and I waffled on for over an hour) so you remember to cover them and also a potted history of her development...we were asked lots of questions, DS was premature so he had lots of interventions early on and I just took along a copy of the discharge letter we got we DS left NICU and of all the summaries of the follow-up appointments. HTH

also, write down all your concerns about your DD. I made a long list before we had our first appointment and I am glad I wrote things down - otherwise I would have probably missed a couple of things.

the paed will probably want to know about her history (starting with pregancy/birth - if you have information about it).

welcome to mumsnet merlin

as utah says, do be honest, if you think you're going to forget something make a list or write a diary of things as they come up in the next few days. It's usual for paeds to take a full history from pregnancy onwards so anything you can add to that will be useful, presumably if your dd was a drug dependant baby there will be hospital notes somewhere they should be able to access relating to that time. I'm sure this won't be the first time they have come across this situation.

is she starting school in september? Has anyone spoken about what support may be on offer for when she starts?

forgot to mention - I also also wrote down all my DD's milestones (gross motor, fine motor, speech & language). it saved a lot of time during the appointment as we didn't had to waffle around. I left a copy of my list of concerns/developmental history with the paed (5 pages ). paed said he found it very useful and referred to it also in his report.

All good advice. Can only add, what to you hope to gain from the appointment? If you want, by the end, to have an idea if they can DX (diagnose) have that written down in a list of questions. What will be the next step? Who will you see next? When, how long are waiting lists for SALT, continence nurse, occupational therapy (OT) etc. What can you be doing to help you DD in the meantime? Do they know of any support groups? Any specialist nurseries, schools? Just a few suggestions but I always seemed to come away from meetings thinking, 'wish I had asked this, or that.' It's easy to forget these questions when faced with intimidating professionals when you are feeling pretty vulnerable. Maybe get someone to go with you for moral support, your partner, ideally or another supportive relative or friend.

Thank you all so much for your replies.
I will compile a list before we go.
She is starting school in september, she is already on an IEP so i will ask for a copy of this to take with me.
The SENCO has observed her in nursery and is talking of support.
Dd is bright and articulate so it does not always appear that she has a problem.
At least we are on the right road!