NEW Tinsley house support thread -part 2!!

[Badvoc]

Hello everyone!
Thought I should start a new thread as we were nearing 1000 posts! :)
Indigo is no longer posting as you all know, but I think it would be such a shame for the support thread to go too.
I know I find reading about all the ups and downs we all experience very helpful and it's so great to hear all the progress :)
So.
We go back to TH next month and can't wait. So interested to see of the tracking programme has worked. I think ds1s reading speed has improved and he is now reading proper chapter books!
He continues to show less anxiety, OCD behaviour and stress.
He is eating better and is generally a much happier chap.
Looking forward to hearing from you all over the next few weeks/months...X

Best of luck unimama. It sounds as though the Easter break has come at the right time for your ds. Maybe starting TH during the hols will help him have a fresh start next term. I agree with the one:one sessions being the key at the moment.

Do you think his refusal to do written work is because he has difficulties with physically writing or is it more the planning of what he wants to say? Or both? Ds learnt to touchtype last year and it has really helped his written work - he doesn't worry about it looking messy and the quality of what he writes is improving.

I so hope that TH can help your ds. Has he been assessed by an Educational Psychologist? I know there are mixed feelings about them on here but we found it very useful to see what specific areas ds struggled with and equally where his strengths were.

Ds and I are off to my sister's tonight ready for our appointment with Robin tomorrow. Hoping to finish with the tracking - he has crept (slowly) up to level 16, hopefully that will be enough!

Keep warm everyone!

Hi everyone, Hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend.

I am coming on here to have a little boast. I got some great feedback from DD's nursery today.

The OT went in to do some work with her and she also had her speech and language group. They were delighted with her as she did everything that was asked of her.

Apparently, her concentration, turn taking, listening and speech has improved and they said she has made a massive leap. She also played with another child yesterday. Not next to but with! It was SO good to hear and has really bolstered me up.

Unfortunately, I then went over to a friends and there were three other little girls there DD's age. She knows them all, but she could not join in their games and for the first time she seemed bothered by it. And it was very hard to see her still so far behind. So she is making progress, but she has a long way to go. So now feel a bit sad and low which is a shame as at lunch time I was really happy.

unimama I hope your visit to Robin goes well.

That's great unimama :)

Or rather prince....sorry!
Still pretty sleep deprived....

Hi unimama - that's great news about your appointment. I hope it goes really well. Happy to chat to you about Dr Goyal too.

Daft have fun tonight and good luck for tom.

Prince - well done Mini Prince. She is doing so well. DS never used to join in at some parties and not others, I keep feeling up and down about this, but DH keeps telling me that he is practicing and will get better!

Badvoc Keep your chin up!

DD was better but lasted two hours at nursery before being sent home with conjunctivitis. I suppose two hours is better than nothing, but wonder if I should have kept her home and avoided it...

Our meet up is on Tuesday 9th April and everyone is very welcome! We are planning on a picnic lunch in Windsor Park.

Well it's very snowy here :)
15 cms and still going...I shall hibernate this weekend.
Dc will be climbing the walls, but never mind.
Dh and ds2 still coughing like mad :(
Got a Skype appt,with robin a week on thurs...very interested to see what ps next! :)

Bit of a hairy drive back up the M3 at lunchtime back from seeing Robin but our weather is no-where near as bad some some of you are experiencing!

So, a bit more tracking and back to Where's Wally for a bit. Was hoping for something new but Robin wants ds to have a chance to get used to his new meds before introducing the next thing. We will most likely miss out the other hemi stims and move on to lumosity in a few weeks.

Ds had just managed to polish off the other half of an Easter egg (that my sister gave him) for breakfast! Oops!

Hi all, just dropping in for a few minutes and a quick post, I don't have nearly enough mumsnetting time these days! DS1 has an ear infection so has been having a duvet day but has made a lot of progress with engaging eyes and target practise - he's completed game a and is halfway through game b. His stair exercises are going well too and he is now doing the going up backwards/coming down forwards which I think is going to be slower to master, poor ds is wobbling all over the place! But his attitude has transformed he frequently offers to do his homework and is able to do it without me standing with him and struggling over every step, he just seems more... joined up if that makes sense? We're going back next week and looking forward to finding out what happens next!

I also wanted to ask if anyone is having trouble getting hold of floradix? I've managed to get hold of some online but I was ordering it through my work as I get a discount and teh pharmacist said there was an issue with the supplier and they didn't know when they'd be able to get it in next. So it may be worth stocking up!

Hi puddle. So glad ds is doing well. I don't use floradix but thanks for the heads up x

Hello zzzz. Indigo is fab at this stuff and really understands so much about the impact of diet and supplements.

I'm afraid I don't know nearly as much as her but we have been following the Tinsley House diet / supplements / exercises since November and it has made a tremendous difference to our dcs.

We take Vegepa
Floradix Kindervital
Floradix Saludynam

The diet is laid out in the second book The Brain Food Plan

It is quite a simple diet of mainly home cooked food - my mother says it is very similar to the food she was bought up on. You eat more protein, fish, veggies and eat less processed food, carbs and sugars.

It can seem a bit daunting at first and I speak from experience, as I tend to have a bit of a panic about things, before getting on with them I plan our food by the week and batch cook where ever possible, so out of every shepherds pie/lasagne/casserole I am freezing c.4 meals plus have left overs for a couple of days. As our dcs are young, I cook for DH and I in the evening and then the children have it the next day. I have worked out loads of ways of making it work - let me know if you'd like to know more.

I was worried about the dcs accepting it. My ds 4 is brilliant and loves it all. DD is not so sure about veggies, but I am sure we'll get there eventually

I've seen Dr Goyal a couple of times and he is convinced that the diet thing is huge for our children.

Good luck!

Puddle - sounds like things are going really well. Thanks for the info on the Floradix, I am going to have a stock up.

Hi zzzzz :)
Basicallly ruggles has covered it!
My ds also had a pretty good diet prior to th and yet by making some small changes we have seen huge improvement...I was looking back at his old paed letters (from 2007 to last year) and it is clear that for a period of time he was just not growing :(
Fast forward to now....and he is nearly on the 91st centile for height and weight :)
He is just about to have posh cheese on toast for breakfast (toasted muffins, tomato/pasta sauce and grated mozerella)
Good luck x

Does the abidec have artificial sweetener in it? The main reason Robin recommends the kinder vital ones is because they have nothing artificial in them. We used Bassett multivitamins for years before doing TH and have recently gone back to them ( cost and ds absolutely hated the taste of the others) to no ill effect. My view would be keep going with the same vitamins if they work for you, particularly if you plan to eradicate other sweetners from his diet. Which omega 3 do you use? We have found the vegepa has much more effect than the old one we used. I think this is because of the higher EPA.
I'm convinced adding a protein breakfast has significantly reduced ds' wriggliness. He can concentrate for much longer periods and the science makes sense that protein would help with that. He usually has scrambled egg with lots of cheddar mixed in with a slice of home made brown bread. I still let him have the occasional yogurt afterwards if he's still hungry. We also do hummus wrap, fish fingers ( good quality ones) and sausages some days. Once a week I let him have him have cereal but only after the protein breakfast. I wish he would eat beans on toast as that would be a nice quick breakfast.
Re evening meals I find I'm doing a roast twice a week instead of once, we have chicken thighs and drumsticks quite often and fish three times a week. We all eat together ( or dh gets his on a plate to reheat later) so it's not too much hassle. I've swapped to brown pasta and home make brown bread. Have you tried brown spaghetti? Mine didn't notice the difference when we changed. I think it's less noticeable than with thicker pasta shapes.
Just realised I've written an essay :) hope it helps

Hi Zzzz, my 11yr old ds has 1 x Vegepa (the stronger ones), Multibionta, Osteocare per day. That covers the essential fatty acids, zinc, magnesium and multivitamin. Luckily, ds prefers tablets!

The biggest change for us diet wise, was making sue that ds had protein for breakfast. So no more cereal!

Basically you need to find supplements/vits that ha no artificial sweeteners or colours in. Sadly vits aimed at kids mostly do have these added :(
We use vegepa chewables and mag/zinc form holland and barrat.
I understand your reluctance when you have fund something that they will take willingly, but it may actually not be at great for him.
Do watch out for sucrose and sulphides too.

Well day 1 of Easter hols almost over....phew it's been a long day!
We have lots of snow still so only been to see my mum and to the shops...had to wait in this morning for the man to come and fix the wi fi hub...grr.
Then the vicar popped in which was unexpected. I am wavering about the PCC now! Gah.
Ds2 still coughing poor thing.
Would quite like to go to bed now! :)

We've just done day 1 too, only another 3.5 weeks to go! Boys were popping this afternoon, so think I need to wrap them up and get some fresh air tomorrow.

It I don't likkkkeee fresh air!.....

It's too....fresh!

Well there I was ready to come on here and boast about our 'poo in the toilet' this morning with DS, then in the time it took me to get a new nappy he'd done another one on the kitchen floor. It's all a step in the right direction! And he's telling us when he needs changed which is just so brilliant.

Does anyone have any breakfast inspiration? DS won't eat egg, sausage etc for breakfast so we'd been going down the fish finger route which worked for a couple of weeks but I think he's got fish finger fatigue and isn't so keen now. Any other ideas? Sometimes he'll eat cheese on toast with beans. It's getting to the point that some days he's not really eating much breakfast then looking for a snack really soon afterwards.

puddle thanks for your warning about floradix. I'd set up a subscribe and save at the weekend and it was saying there were only 15 bottles left. Mine have been dispatched now so hoping they don't run out.

zzzzz I know it won't be the same for everyone, but we've noticed that DS (3) has been much more open to trying new foods since changing his diet and upping the protein, cutting the additives etc. There weren't many to begin with there are much less now! I go round the supermarket with my little book of additives looking things up! Calpol was the one I hadn't thought about. I need to go quiz a pharmacist as most paracetamol/ibuprofen solutions for kids either has sweetener or loads of E numbers. Also, since changing his diet, I'm noticing its almost as if he naturally low-carbs himself. Neither DS or DD are keen on rice, potatoes etc. The only carb they love is pasta (now wholemeal). So we might have breaded chicken with different veg for dinner but no actual 'filling-up' type carb. Wrt cakes, biscuits etc, again it seems like we've broken an addiction with him. He no longer asks for a biscuit, chocolate etc. That helps me not to feel like a mean mummy!

Oh, and the vegepa omega are really orangey. I snip the top, squeeze onto a spoon and DS takes it that way. He quite likes them. And I'm sure there's a discount code for buying them via the website.

Zzzzz...ds1 diet was hugely restricted at one point so I do empathise :(
People are only trying to be helpful but I got a lot of "he won't starve himself just don't humour him" comments etc...it is hard to understand if you haven't been through it so to you x
You can snip the vegepa and take the liquid out..it's quite nice!
It really helped me to know that lots of our kids have restricted/limited diet and are carb addicts!
Lookslike rain...ds has beans on toast and posh cheesy muffins for breakfast when he doesn't have egg.