Is DS just very spirited and sensitive or something else?

[DitheringAgain]

Apologies in advance for a long post.

DS is nearly 3 and a half. I've been dithering for a long while, probably since he was about 2, as to whether some of his quirks are just typical toddler/pre-schooler behaviour or if they point to something else. If anyone can offer some advice or wisdom I would be very grateful.

Right now, the biggest issue I have is that I still find DS very unpredictable as to what will upset him or make him angry. I can deal with the normal and expected toddler tantrums like when you tell them they can't have ice cream for breakfast, but sometimes he has total meltdowns that seem to me to come out of nowhere e.g. (TMI) last week I wiped his bottom ?too early?! He couldn't be consoled for at least 10 minutes, since I wasn't able to ?put the poo back and do it again?.

When DS has a meltdown, it's not unusual for him to express his anger or frustration by deliberately breaking a rule e.g. he'll scream ?I HAVE to throw hard things? or ?I need to hit YOU?. It's only ever me or DH he does this too though. DS has not (to my knowledge) deliberately hit another boy or girl and is very affectionate and sweet to his little sister. Usually these meltdowns will run their course and he'll get over it himself anywhere between 5 minutes to half an hour, depending on how wound up he is. The part I find hardest to deal with is that even though I can see he is upset, he will not let me comfort him. If I try to talk to him (keeping sentences as short and simple as possible) he screams over the top of me: ?be quiet?, ?you have to stop talking NOW?, etc. over and over again.

As well as the unpredictable meltdowns, there are also the things that I know set DS off every time. For example when he wakes up at night, it must be me that goes into his room. Anyone else and it is hysterics until he makes himself sick. Similarly, he won't get out of his bed at night time, even when he is ill. We had a very stressful week not so long ago when DS had croup. I couldn't even make a gentle suggestion to DS that he sit up or sip some water without him freaking out. Anything I tried to do to help just made him worse.

Thing is, when DS is out of the house, or we have guests over, he is rarely anything other than the model of a perfect child! I've described his outbursts to MIL and I don't think she believes me. Instead she implied that because he is bright he's just good at manipulating me. I accept it is possible, I've never felt like I'm a natural parent and don't really know what I am doing. But DS has actual tears during his meltdowns and sometimes he sobs until he's sick ? he's surely not such an accomplished actor at 3.5 yrs?? My mum is probably the only person (other than DH or myself) who's seen DS's special meltdowns more than a couple of times. I've discussed his behaviour with her and she sympathises with me, but compares him to me when I was young and says I was same and grew out of it eventually. I'm not sure how much comfort I take from that though... I don't want DS to be like me!

So now that I've written all that about his meltdowns, I'm confused because it makes DS sound a lot worse than he really is. Yes I have periods where I feel like I can't cope, but he is only 3 and don't most parents feel like that from time to time anyway? DS is always most difficult when he is ill or overtired. When he is otherwise well, he is mostly a happy little boy and I like his company. He is funny, he plays well on his own, he has a little friend at pre-school he sometimes talks about. If I work around things that I know will upset him, he's a lovely boy. His pre-school haven't ever raised any issues with his behaviour and when I enquired about how he was fitting in socially, they said ?you wouldn't even know he was there; he just gets on with stuff.?.

So I keep going back and forth between ?I need to take this further? (usually following a bad few days where it often turns out that DS was feeling unwell and visible symptoms hadn't yet appeared) and ?he's just a sensitive kid? (usually following a discussion about his behaviour with my mum, who makes me feel like I've made a mountain out of a molehill).

Am I worrying about nothing?

Thanks for reading this far...

I really dont know other that I would start to make a diary of his issues as they arise. How you dealt with them and the outcome.

What do you think the issue is? what concerns to do have?

You said he plays well on his own. Is he using his toys appropriately as in what they are for rather than just watching the car wheels spin as an example or just lining them up.

Good that he is nice to his sister. How does he play with her?

At the pre school they say he just gets on with "stuff". Is that with other peers or just by himself or alongside them or does he interact well with them and join in games. That is a question I would ask the preschool.

I would observe and gather as much information as possible and then have a word with your GP show him your diary and any other comments from the preschool, and ask if he can refer him to a Peadiatrician. It wont do any harm to check anything out :)

Thanks - a diary, that's a very good idea and I wonder why I didn't think of it! It would probably help me understand things a bit better if nothing else.

I suppose my concern is that he might be borderline aspergers. I don't know a huge amount about it other than what I've googled, but some of the adult traits sound familiar in my dad as well as my brother. I myself am a programmer, so if DS did turn out to be on the spectrum, I don't think I would be all that shocked.

I've been noticing things about DS that could be something, or not.

• Cars, for example, are often arranged in long lines across tables. He also spends quite a lot of time lying down with his head on the floor, pushing a car along slowly while watching its wheels turn. In fact, I recall a time when my mum gave him a new small toy car as a present and DS immediately delved through his toy box and gleefully produced another car, which happened to have the same pattern on its wheel (was by the same manufacturer). So it is probably fair to say he pays much attention to wheels! That said, he does spend a lot of time playing with his toy cars "normally" too. He drives them along roads, makes engine noises, beeping, etc, drives them around a toy garage and parks them and so on.

• He's got a good memory for facts and names, especially if it's something that interests him. For example, his "thing" at the moment is to ask what type a car is (Ford, Peugeot, Toyota, etc). When he was first learning them, it was not unusual for him to ask me about every single car that drove by or that we walked past. Now he knows most of them, I usually get a running commentary of the type of every car that goes past. For a while it was all we'd talk about on a walk or drive, although I think now the interest is waning a bit. DS does seem to go through phases with his interests.

• There are a few more things: like he's not a great eater (gags on his dinner if there's a lumpy or chewy bit), he still wakes at night more often than he sleeps through, he copies other children a lot (a few times I've had to stop him following another kid about a park and copying everything they say and do, even if it becomes obvious the kid doesn't want his company). He does do imaginitive play, albeit mostly re-enacting stories from books or TV.

I'm trying to keep a balance between staying open-minded, watching for signs and not projecting things onto DS that could be perfectly normal for his age. Some of his quirks that I noticed when he was younger he's already grown out of. For example, he's a bit more interested in actually drawing now, whereas usually he'd want to do nothing with crayons except stand them up in a line (and then lose his temper when he knocked them over). Also, he enjoys having books read to him a lot now, but for a while when he was one-ish, all he wanted to do was turn them over and examine the numbers on the barcode.

"Good that he is nice to his sister. How does he play with her?"
DS and DD seem to get on well at the moment, though DD is only 6 months and not crawling yet. DS likes to show her his toys sometimes, he chats to her, cuddles her a lot, kisses her. He can be a bit rough, but not really on purpose, I think he tends to forget that he's a lot heavier. He also loves making her laugh by dancing around madly in front of her! Only one time did DS purposefully hurt DD and that was odd... he was playing with her toes and out of the blue he bit her foot. DD has a very good cringe-inducing psycho scream though, and I think her response freaked him out more than she was upset by the pain! He's never done it since...

"Is that with other peers or just by himself or alongside them or does he interact well with them and join in games."
That's a good question. I think DS does a mixture of both, but I have another stay & play day coming up soon so I'll watch for that and ask as well.

Thanks again for your advice coff33pot.