talking of siblings - for those that had child with SN first...

[Woooozle100]

.. what struck you most as odd / different or caused concern with subsequent NT kids?

Was thinking about this last night and laughing about it. For me, my first dd was v floppy as result of low muscle tone. She didn't have that 'scrunched up' appearance and when she laid down her legs fell completely flat.

When I had my ds, his newborn 'frog legs' where a total shock. Was convinced it was a sign of spasticity. Erm even got the GP onto it who had to go to great effort to convince me that this was 'normal'

Haha - not to me Was also staggered by his voracious appetite

Having a child with friends. DS2 has fantastic social skills and just gets on with being social. He's very outgoing so that's all a bit of a shock. Also very lippy at times and breaks rules! But he's a typical boy and although quite caring and very sensitive he's not as sensible as DS1 was at the same age. DS1 aged 4 was picking his way round paint tins and never would have dreamed of doing anything naughty with them whereas DS2 would have been painting all over the place!

DS2 is also brilliant at sport and could catch a ball better at aged 2 than DS1 can now aged 14. On the flip side DS2 is rubbish at anything electrical/ DVD players, the TV, the computer, the video - if there is a wrong button to press he will press it whereas DS1 is really good and just seems to know how things work.

I do find it is just as hard some days parenting DS2 as I did/do parenting DS1.

We get pulled up at school a lot to tell us how fab DS2 is

The subtext of course is 'unl;ike ds1.....' damning with faint (absent) praise and all that

I'm just waiting for that moment (DD is 5, DS nearly 2).
Already DS communicates so much more than DD, but she's catching up as a result (things like saying she's hungry rather than trying to raid the biscuit tin). With DD it all seems to be down to a sense of self. It's like she never realised that she's a different person from the rest of us, so she thinks she doesn't need to communicate because we all know what she knows. Which of course we don't, which can be frustrating for all parties concerned!
However, I remember when DS at about 20 months was stroking a car saying "shiny, shiny" and I remember one of DD's first salt exercises at age 3.5 was to work on rough/smooth, shiny, wet/dry, full/empty. Stuff DS just DOES.

Oh, and I really got the bittersweet thing the first time I saw DS switch from English to French in the playpark because a little boy had taken his car. When the little boy didn't respond to "car, car" he tried "voiture, voiture" and got it back again. DD would still just cry, at this point!

oh yes - pixie - I was able to say words when driving but when dd2 not very old piped up and asked what 'shit' did? ( i had almost been run off the road by some idiot overtaking where they did not have the room and then cutting back in on top of me - I said SHIT!) dd2 then asked what did shit do mummy!

Fio - I thought dd2 was just okay and so was dd3 until her kindy teacher pointed out that actually dd2 was quite a deep thinker and very bright!