baby ADHD | ADHD Information

Hi all.

 

my son is 7 months old and i am sure that he has adhd, this may seem unusual but bothe me and his father have adhd, he has never been a baby baby. he is at 7 months old trying to climb on top of the couch. he has 3 easily recognisable words. daddy, cat and hello. he is the same as i was at that age,  problem is that i cant keep him entertaind for 2 minits at the moment and he is becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to walk and talk. are most adhd children like this as babies and if so is there anything that i can do to relive his frustration.

 

shellb

If you both have ADHD it is very possible your child will, but there is no way you will know this at 7 months. My daughter who is ADHD was NOTHING like that as a baby. My younger daughter who (we do not think) does not have ADHD WAS like that and still is.

My suggestion is to start the things you can do that benefit all children with or without ADHD. Like good diet and sleeping routines. Lots and lots of structure and routine. No overstimulating, but lots of excercise.

My dd who is ADHD was walking at 8 months and didn't talk until she was 2 years old... was trying her shoes at 3... every baby is different.  She could not do anything without me being right at her side... she did need to be entertained and needed to be do something at all times.  Sleeping as a baby was horrible.. woke up all night long, horrible colic for the first 4 months.. screamed blood murder all day long..

Now she is a wonderful energic girls 8 1/2... sleeping is fine.  I have found that not 2 ADHD children have the same traits.. some eat fine others not, sleeping non-issue other problems sleeping etc...

What worked for my son... possible ADHD... he loved to jump.. still does.. I had a jumpy swing in the house between the door jam.  Stayed in there for hours jumping.  Jumping on the beds... he loved it.  My son needed to be in motion if he is not making train tracks for Thomas the Tank Engine.

Another thing that my kids found endless fun was playing in shaving cream on a large mirror... they use to write their letters in it later on... great fun. 

Just a thought for he wanting to communicate to you... try to learn sign language.. I had a friend that taught her son to sign and that is how they communicated until he was speaking full sentences....

Enjoy your baby...

abbymaker GREAT suggestion for sign language!

My ADHd son kicked the whole time he was in my stomach. People could watch and see my stomach literally be kicked and move and jiggle.

He never crawled, just got up and walked at 8 months. He started to show adhd signs around 18 months. He has a speech delay which brought us to early intervention.

they tried to tell me he was autistic, but Boston Children's Hospital put that to bed quick. I read in the book "What to Expect during the Toddler Years about ADHD and he fit the criteria. Had him professionally diagnosed at 4 1/2. Started meds way too late at 6 1/2.

Mothers intuition is usually right!

Keep an eye on him and possible impulsive behaviour, boy we sure had to!!

My daughter was very active even in the womb, and kicked constantly from the time that she started moving.  I remember her doctor commenting on how "alert and active" she was while in the nursery during the first couple of days following her birth.  She only crawled for a short time, and began walking at 9 months, and went directly to running and climbing.  It was around this time that she began to say words, and could connect some sentences at about 1 year of age. 

I can remember how destructive she was as a toddler.  She ruined numerous cassette and video tapes by pulling them out of the case and breaking the tape.  We couldn't seem to get things out of her reach due to her amazing climbing abilities.  It also seemed as if she had built-in radar for finding things that we didn't want her to have.  She would constantly "pick on" our stereo stand and entertainment center.  We finally removed the glass doors from them, as she would keep taking them off.  We were tired of replacing them, and were afraid of her breaking them and getting hurt.  I lost count of how many baby gates that we went through with her.  She would push the plastic ones out at the bottom and go under, no matter how tightly we had it adjusted.  The bottoms would quickly become warped.  The wooden ones worked better after I finally started putting the side with the wooden bar across the middle away from her.  Otherwise, she would climb up on this and vault over.  It always took 2 of these for the door to her room after she was about a year old.  She could climb over one despite our efforts to keep her from doing this.  The door to her room always looked like a cage. 

I know that keeping these children from becoming overstimulated has been mentioned.  I feel that this is very important.  I can remember our daughter sitting in her exersaucer when she was about 7 months old, and bouncing very wildly whenever loud rock or heavy metal music came on the TV.  She would become very excited at times and run wildly back and forth across the room, often hurting herself before we could get her to stop.  She flipped her rocking horse once when she was under 2 years old, and required stitches under her eye as a result.  Her dad and her 2 older brothers used to love to wrestle with her.  She was so tough, and they thought that it was really cute.  I had warned my husband a number of times about her becoming overstimulated  as a result, and the danger of "someone getting hurt".  What I had in mind was that she or one of the boys would be the ones to get hurt.  Well, the wrestling matches came to an abrupt hault the day that our 18 month old daughter backed up all the way across the room,  charged headfirst at her father (who was not really prepared), and slammed headfirst into his nose!  It was bleeding, and we thought that it was broken for awhile. 

As for suggestions for keeping a child calm at this age, most babies seem to do well with soft music.  My daughter usually liked "messy" activities that she  could do with her hands, such as painting with pudding, squeezing materials similar to modeling clay (there is a recipe for peanut butter playdough that  would be safe for children who are fairly young to play with.  I used to take my daughter for bike rides a great deal when she was about a year old.  There is something about this motion that is calming to them.

I know lots of people will tell you that you can't know a kid has ADHD at such a young age, but looking back, it seems so obvious that our DS had it from the beginning.

He moved so fast as a little one that friends described spending 15 minutes alone with him as "scary." Climbed everything, and faster than you could keep your eye on. All of our book cases still have braces on them from when we had them all screwed to the walls!

Walked at 9 months and basically took off from that moment on.

My first child, and I had no idea that other kids weren't necessarily so exhausting ... it was all I could do to keep up with him and keep him safe.

When I hear of kids staying in their cribs until age 2 I just sigh. Ha! Not only could he climb out of there very early on, but somehow could manage to fall out of a toddler bed with a bedside rail. Somehow, that two-inch gap at the top was enough.

Don't even ask me about naps. ;-)


Looking back now, my adhd boy was a definate adhd baby. He was my first, so I thought the constant on the go, nothing holding his attention was a normal boy thing.  He also, walked by 9 months, and did not say a word until he was almost 4. He was also in a state program starting at age 2 to help with his speech delay. The therapist did hint after I asked that she definately saw the symptoms. He learned sign language in that program, and it really helped alot. He is now doing well, no other problems besides adhd and a slight ocd. But, every baby is different so like someone else suggested, avoid food dyes and artificial sweeteners, they affect behavior ALOT! Just concentrate on his diet for now, who knows, he just might be overly curious.

 My son, who is constantly telling me he's bored now, entertained himself for hours on end as an infant/toddler.  He walked at 8 months and started running a couple weeks later, but he was a happy baby that loved people- never showed any stranger anxiety, which kind of made me nervous cause he would walk up to anyone at my dad's church and let them pick him up.

I have a daycare and have worked with many babies over the years, and I can tell you that climbing the walls and microscopic attention spans are very normal at this age.  They won't do anything for more than a minute and usually only if you are sitting with them.  Right now I have two 12 mo. olds in my daycare.  They spend the day crawling around, playing with something for no more than a minute or two (even if I'm on the floor with them) and generally tearing apart my house.  Oh, and every couple of minutes one or the other wants to be held, but only for a minute until something on the floor catches their attention- once again typical behavior.

My recommendation is to read up on child development- they grow and change so fast at this age, but it can also be a very frustrating age because you literally can't get anything done with baby around.  The more you know, the more you will be able to just enjoy him.

My ds, looking back on it, was an ADHD baby.  He could never sit still or be enertained for more than 2 minutes, he has sleeping issues every night, as he got older, it got worse.  people told me that it was becuase he was a boy but he would settle down.  He NEVER did.

Totally sounds like a normal curious 7 month old to me. Do not jump to conclusions until at LEAST age 6, and let him be a baby.

My ADHDer was a very calm baby, happy, played normally, and walked at 10 months. My "normal" one was a fussy, cranky, colic baby who walked at 7 1/2 months and was not easily entertained, she is actually extremely intelligent, above average IQ, 3 year high school graduate, and a sophomore in college on the Deans list, at 18.

You never know, it may not be ADHD, but just boredom.