26 month old regressing, scared.

[Firsttimemum246]

Son experiencing a regression now. Anything I can do? How long will it last? I’m scared.

My happy bubbly social 26 month old is changing. A week ago he was using sentences like “I want to go on the swing” (as a toddler you can imagine he was using “I want” several times an hour), yesterday that had changed to “go on swing” or just “swing” and he won’t repeat back the full phrase even when I model it for him. He’s gone from 5-6 word sentences to 2-3 words.

He’s also lost some social skills - doesn’t say hello or goodbye to people he knows, eye contact and joint attention has reduced. I’d say it’s been going on for a couple of weeks now, since around the time he had a big sleep change and pushed his bedtime back. This had also come initially with advancements but now he’s going backwards.

It’s fairly subtle so far but I’m terrified for his future. Is there anything we can do to support him? How long does the decline happen over? Essentially when will we know it has stopped?

Any hopeful stories particularly welcomed. When nursery flagged some early autism signs about a month ago we weren’t too worried, but we thought he was beyond the age this could happen.

Who should we contact? The GP? Nursery are aware.

Thanks so much in advance

Has he been unwell or have there been any big changes in your lives?

I would contact the GP and HV.

There isn’t one set path or reason for regression, so no-one will be able to say if DS will regress more etc.

Sleep regression isn’t uncommon in toddlers so that on its own wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Does DS seem tired?

Nope, normal toddler snottiness and the only big change was back in late feb when he moved rooms at nursery

Yes we weren’t worried at all about the sleep change, didn’t give it a second thought except that it was annoying. And it seemed to coincide with some progress. But it was about a week after that the noticeable loss started

what signs did nursery flag? a week doesn't seem long enough to truly conclude regression (or at least regression outside the realm of normal development - I think it's fairly common for kids to have weeks here and there where things are a bit backwards). Although i remember noticing in my DD early on and everyone saying it was in my head so i don't want to do that here, and I'm guessing nursery wouldnt have rushed to mention something.

in terms of your Qs, and if it is the start of regressive autism, which I think seems to be your worry from the post (of course a very big "if" based on the limited info in your post) I think the answers are unfortunately all "it depends" - the more i've learned / read about it, it can vary hugely in terms of time it takes, outcomes, etc.. Some kids seem to 'bounce back' relatively quick. Have you spoken to HV? They are probably a good point of contact. Good idea to do the M-Chat before going so that you can refer them to that if helpful. You can find it online and it flags whether DC shows signficant indicators of autism at that age.

What I would say is maybe keep a diary / take plenty of videos etc.. It can be hard to look back and truly trust your memory about what DC was doing at a certain point and I've found myself looking at videos and whatsapps etc to remind myself when I've needed to answer Qs for various appointments and things.

Hi OP - any update on your little one? Hope all has improved

Honestly I wasn’t in a great place when I wrote this. His speech and things were going backwards but it wasn’t a regression it was chronic overtiredness because we’d been capping his naps due to him sleeping later but he still wasn’t going to bed any earlier.

I’m very grateful to the previous poster who said the time we’d had wasn’t enough to truly know as this really was the case for us.

I’m grateful to be able to say our son is doing really well, still has autism/is a gestalt language processor but the main issue seemed to be the sensory environment at nursery and since older children have left he’s come into his own there and they now get to see the same bubbly little boy we know from home.