our little one had four shots and the new oral rota vac the other day. it was not a fun afternoon for her, poor little girl, but i feel that for most vaccines, the benefits outweigh the risks.

I agree with you - the majority of vaccines are beneficial, it's just measles and rubella that I'm not convinced about. There is also controversy that the 3 in 1 MMR may be linked to Autism. It's all a bit of a minefield.

i recently read that cases of autism have not decrease since the removal of the mercury preservative.

I read that too. ^^

this may have been covered previously................

As most..(all??) of you know, I've got a 2.5 month old baby boy and he's cute as a button, and making all kinds of baby noises.

I talk to him like he's grown up. Maybe it's a fluke, but he smiles (bigger) when I make the same sounds that he makes.

I don't want to stunt his development, but is my making "baby noises" going to help or hinder his development?

Is it better if I do a combination?

(Just a sidebar, holy crap I feel so damn stupid for NOT remembering this from when is big brother was a baby, but.....I don't.)

Of course it was ONLY 9 years ago) :shrug:

you won't stunt his development at all. babies love that verbal pingpong. not only does it help develop language skills to hear the same noise twice in quick succession but it encourages them to make new noises. plus all the eye and physical contact you're giving him when you play this game have immeasurable benefits. you're connecting in so many ways.

it is a good idea to use "big people" language, though - asking a question and actually pausing for a response, touching parts of his body and naming them, singing, finger plays like itsy bitsy spider, going through the house or on a walk and pointing out objects while you name them, flicking on and off the lights while you say "on, off" ... all that kind of stuff ... none of it ever hurts.

i say mix it up. variety is the spice of life.

Thanks wyndhy!

How's your little one doing?


Daniel is SUCH a "daddy's boy" - editor's note, -please feel free to ignore that editorial statement :)

I say go with your instincts. However you feel is natural to communicate with baby is usually the right way.

It's empowering for babies to have their noises repeated to them; they learn that they have a way of altering their environment through verbal communication, but obviously they need to hear adult words too.

You probably speak to your baby in adult words more than you realise, and using 'motherese' (the sing song, over inunciated 'baby voice') is absolutely fine too. In fact, it helps baby identify important words (usually nouns) like Mummy, Daddy, Baby, Teddy, Dog, Cat etc.

When my little one was really tiny I found it easier to sing to him than talk. After a while I ran out of things to say to him, but could sing him songs all day long. Now he's 13 months old, it's unsurprising then that as well as Mama, Dadda, Hello and Bye, the only other thing he says is 'Row, Row'. Usually repeatedly comlete with the rocking motion until I finally cave and sing it a couple of times round!

she's wonderful! thanks for asking. daddy's girl, i think ... she talks to him way more than she talks to me (harrumph! little traitor). she's giving us lots of those big smiles, keeping us on our toes and generally ruling the house. she can't take her eyes off her big brother and sister, grudgingly takes one bottle of milk but otherwise wants it straight from the source, sings up a storm and loves to have a chat with her raggedy ann doll. she likes the night life, but once she's asleep, she stays there til we get her up at 7 or 8 to eat, so i can't complain too much (although i do anyway:p). she's this close to rolling onto her belly and wants to sit up so bad, it's a riot. she's a riot. we're having lots of fun.

Little mayhem is doing really well. Had his heal stick on Tuesday which lead to the first real tears that we had seen from him....poor little man.

BUT last night, well actually 4:30am, he smiled.... yes little mayhem smiled at us.. first mom and then me!!! YAY. It totally made the last couple of weeks with little sleep worth it.

You know what they say, Mayhem -

'When does a baby smile?'

- 'Just in time'

Glad your little one doesn't cry too much. Ours didn't either and it makes it so muchc easier to bond. Having said that - keeping on top of their needs so they don't cry is exhausting!

That made my morning to read about Little Mayhem's smile. :nod:

How's Little Pucker doing with those chicken pox Lou? Hopefully the little fella is traveling at a good clip down the road to recovery. :wish:

Aw thanks for asking Iowaman. Not only have the spots all healed over now, but he has hardly any marks left from them either. One of the other kids at nursery is still covered in marks all over his face and he caught them a week earlier than our little one.

Unfortunately, he seems to have come down with a cold already - it's just been one thing after another since September - a combination of cold weather and starting nursery I think!

Oh and he's travelling at a good clip everywhere these days. He is constantly on his feet now - hardly ever crawls at all. Looks like his babyhood is nearly over!! :(

Just keep remembering how anxious you were to see him walk. :rofl:

This is lengthy but I'd appreciate all of you reading through and giving me any thoughts you may have - especially our pixies that have experience with this sort of stuff.


Our little boy is in speech therapy and someone's decided he needed to be evaluated by a developmental and occupational therapist. The reasons are two-fold: one.) I am trying to get him in a free preschool class (we cannot afford one) cuz I think that being with his peers several days a week in a setting that is more structured than a play-date will do more for his speech issues than any therapy or one-on-one practice will, but they will not qualify kids based solely on speech deficiencies...yes, he must "be bad" at something else in order to get help, and two.) The OT screener thought he was hyper-active and also showed some difficulty handling scissors (but that's bullshit) and mid-line problems - which I've notice but I don't believe they are as severe as the therapist thinks. It is something we work on here at home so that it doesn’t manifest itself into dyslexia or reading problems later. So because of the things the OT noticed during his speech therapy session, they’ve decided to send occupational and developmental therapists out to the house for evaluations and I have agreed.

Now that you have the back story, here's my gripe, my in-your-face-you-lousy-therapists-and-your-standardized-bullshit, and my dilemma:

The OT was here at the house and had the boy do all sorts of stuff like cutting and gluing, puzzles and beads...the usual occupational stuff ... and when he glues his sun onto the paper, he sticks it on the bottom and the therapist says "On the ground, huh? That's interesting," none too kindly and looks at me in this eyebrows raised, I think he's got problems sort of way and my boy says, "Yup. It's setting."

I almost stuck out my tongue, but figured I'd be setting a bad example. :p

Then, after he's done gluing, he asks me if he can wash his hands cuz there's glue all over them. I tell him yes and at the same time the therapists asks him if he doesn't like his hands to be dirty (indicative - to them at least - of sensory problems). He looks to me and I excuse him to wash his hands and the therapist wants to know if I think he has a problem and explains to me why she thinks he does. So I asked her, "Do you like it when your hands are sticky, or do you prefer to wash them?"

she never did answer my question. my faith in these people is quickly sliding away. Why are they focusing so much on the unusual stuff ... tha "bad" stuff? What ever happened to the sum of the parts?

She takes her results from the day (she told me he scored at 53 months – he’s 41 months) and the assessment questionnaire I had filled out and leaves. She calls me a few days later with questions, telling me “the test has scored him as having severe sensory problems.”

First of all … “the test has scored?” Since when does a test do the scoring? Where’s the human factor?

And secondly … she was here, she met him. He hugged her and talked to her and sat mostly still for almost an hour and a half (she took her damn sweet time). He talked to her about how he likes to go swimming, and help me bake cookies, and how he takes showers, and likes to eat mac and cheese and carrots and steak, and likes to play at the playground and go zoom-real-fast down the slide.

But this idiot is using the stupid questions they ask on these stupid questionnaires, and the stupid standardized way they score it instead of an over-all view of him as a three-year old, middle-child boy who doesn't care for getting sticky and (gasp!) doesn't conform to the absolute perfect standardized kid.

I politely reminded her that I know my child best, and I would do anything in my power to help him in areas that I see as potentially problematic, but just because he doesn't want to swing on the swings 2 times out of the 10 I ask, or would prefer to play quietly on occasion as opposed to playing with motion-type toys all the time, and sometimes gets pissed when the sun in his face, and doesn't always like to be held upside-down or spun in circles, and avoids foods and smells he doesn't like, and takes his shoes and sock off almost the minute we walk in the door does not mean he has a problem. In fact, it means he's human. He has likes and dislikes, just like an adult. He manages to behave reasonably well when we’re out, and he is kind and smart and fun and functional. Yes, he has some quirks, but they are nothing that interfere with his life in any significant way. They have also lessened as he gets older. I also reminded her that just because they recommend treatment doesn't mean I must agree to it.

She politely reminds me that that is my prerogative.

All i wanted to do was get him speech therapy. He isn’t even that deficient but he can be a little hard to understand - especially if you don’t know him well, or he’s talking on the phone. And since he’s gong to be headed into kindergarten pretty much right when he turns 5, I wanted to try and clear up most of his speech issues early so that he doesn’t get the shaft by a teacher who has 24 other kids to worry about and will not have the time to say “What did you say?” and actually listen closely to him. He’ll just get “yessed" - he knows when he’s being yessed, and he hates it - or worse, he'll be ignored. But now I’ve got myself and him into “the system” and I’m worried they are going to try and change him and get him to fit some norm that someone, somewhere has defined as ideal. I’m worried they are going to pester me to get him therapy that I don’t want him to have nor do I think he needs. Even the speech therapist recently asked me about his hyper-activity. She’s never (prior to this eval he had) mentioned anything to me about his behavior being problematic while he’s with her or potentially problematic later on when he has to sit still and pay attention in class. I asked her if he was violent, she said no. I asked her if she thought he couldn’t follow directions. She said no. She added that in fact, she puts some very high demands on him and he usually does very well. I asked her why she thought he had a problem and she told me that after his OT screen at the school, the therapist saw him as “excited” and asked if he was always like that. Basically, she’s been corrupted.

It used to be that people just chalked hyper activity and little kid behavior up to “being a kid,” but now they want our kids to act like adults.

My dilemma is that I don’t know if I should just pull him from the system all together or keep the speech and possibly have an OT work with him a few times a month on the mid-line problem. I only wanted their help in the first place cuz I couldn’t seem to help him on my own - the dynamics were too charged between mother and son to get more than a few minutes of real work in a day. But now I feel that I’ve done him a disservice; that I have allowed these people to label my child, and try to change my child all for my worry of what may or may not happen the future. I love him just the way he is, quirks and all. Like i said, he’s functional – none of his little quirks have ever (or likely will ever) kept him from living out his life in any way that I would consider outside the normal range. I don't know if I should allow them to continue with his therapy just so I can get him qualified for a class, either. I think I'd rather him be a little different and lispy, maybe even have him begin kindergarten at six if we need to, than subject him to philosophy and technique I do not agree with, and the pressure to conform he's sure to get from his teacher if he ends up in therapy.

The developmental peeps have not been here yet - they are due in a few days. I don't know if i'm going to keep the appointment yet. I am curios what they'll have to say, but I know he picks up on all this and I don't think he needs more undermining of his self-confidence, or more people pointing out what's wrong.

Yes, he’s hyper. Yes, he can be weird. Yes, he has some unusual habits. But when did all this get labeled as retarded or underdeveloped or unhealthy or deficient?


shit.