Many parents of preschoolers bury their heads in the sand and blow it off that their kids are young and will outgrow things. I applaud you for your willingness to seek help for your struggling child. It sounds like you should meet with a specialist to address your concerns. Ask your pediatrician for a referral.
You need to see a specialist, pediatric nuerologist?
I am not an expert but it COULD be an autism spectrum disorder. The sooner you find out the sooner you can try natural ways to fix it and then progress from there.
Just a few tips that may save you time when researching: gluten casein free diet helps autism no milk wheat
Take away milk right now and try it. See what happens some people claim autistic children show improvement amazingly quick. I would be so interested in knowing what happens.
And make a doctor appointment right away your child does have something going on.
My son is 9 and displayed some of the things you are experiening he is ADHD ODD and has sensory issues maybe slight Aspergers
Some of things you are saying sound so familiar to me. My son was diagnosed shortly after 4 and we started on a low dose of Vyvanse, that seems to be working a little. He see's a Pediatric Nuro every 3/4 months and we are doing our best to work thru things.
First, let me start with apologizing for this being so long, but I have so much swirling around in my head it's crazy!
I know my child is only 4.5 yrs and that is very young to tell anything for sure, however, I have to say that I have KNOWN there is something different about my child pretty much since birth, just not positive of what.
To start, she was an amazingly "good" baby. If she cried, you knew she was either wet or hungry, that was pretty much it. She was always so content though, and would literally just lay/sit on the floor and play by herself forever. She also was excellent at just sitting in her stroller very content when we were out. I used to get so many compliments about how "good" she was and how nobody ever heard her fuss. From the time she was a small baby, I was part of a group of moms that had similarly aged babies and we would do things several times a week together. At some point I started realizing these other kids were actually paying attention to each other and even interacting now, but mine was always way off to the side doing her own thing. When it got to the point that the other kids were playing ring-a-round-the-rosy together and my child was refusing to be anywhere near them, much less join in, I really knew there was something. They were playing so nicely and I was exhausted running after my child going from swing, to slide, to balance beam, back to swing, etc.
She also had some odd little quirks that people thought were just cute, but made me wonder. The biggest thing that used to stand out was that from about 1 yr to 3 yrs old she would have to organize and categorize everything. I would find her shoes perfectly lined up in her closet, her Goldfish lined up (all heads and tails facing the same way) on her plate. Her blocks would get put into categories, and then all squares were lined up, then all rectangles lined under that, all cylinders lined under that, etc. She would get upset too if things didn't work right. I remember one time she became so upset over some new shoes because there wasn't room for them to be lined up in the closet in a single row anymore. Making two rows just didn't cut it for her, she was so distraught I said forget it and literally chucked one pair of shoes a little before their time to make them all fit again. Luckily she is not like this anymore. I would say somewhere around 3 yrs old this organized behavior started slowly fading away. Now I have the opposite problem in that I can't get her to keep her room clean anymore...go figure. :)
At her 2 yr appointment I finally told the Dr that I felt she needed some intervention for speech, which he of course agreed. At 2 yrs she literally only had 5 words, by the time she started speech therapy at 2 yrs and 4 mos old, she had 8 words. After about 4 months of speech therapy she suddenly started making leaps and bounds practically overnight to the point that relatives who had seen her at Christmas and couldn't get her to say 2 words, then saw her at Easter and had actual conversations with her were astounded. Now we can't get her to stop making noise. She is constantly singing or just making noise in general to the point of annoyance to others at times.
I would say too that right about the same time as this big word explosion, she started making leaps in her social skills as well. By 3.5 yrs old she was finally playing with kids and making friends. Unfortunately, she would also go overboard with them in that she does a lot of touching other kids, leaning forward to get right in their faces, grabbing their arms, legs, etc. It's like she knows no personal boundaries.
I would also like to say something about her sleep. She was an amazing sleeper as a baby. Slept through the night very early on and used to take herself to bed as a toddler. If she got tired, I would see her pick up her blanket and walk down the hallway to go climb into bed on her own. Somewhere between 18 months and 2 yrs this changed. By 2 she was no longer taking a nap (she would just lay in her bed in the afternoon and never sleep) and started having difficulties falling asleep. Once she was asleep, she would, and still to this day does, stay asleep all night and sleeps for a long period if she is able to sleep in in the morning. Getting her to wind down in bed, stop singing, stop playing with her doll, etc though is a chore. We do have a routine...dinner, bath, teeth, two books, then bed. If we stray from that all you-know-what will break loose, so I do try to stick with routine. Still though, her sister falls asleep within 15 min, this child we are lucky if she is out in 2 hours. It didn't used to be a huge issue, because like I said she would sleep later in the morning. Now though, she has to get up every morning for school so sleep is becoming an issue.
She has always had problems with crowded situations. I can tell she gets overstimulated and literally starts vibrating. She just can't sit still or focus if there is too much going on. I actually pulled her from one gymnastics gym and put her in a much smaller one at 3 yrs old for this reason. But when she was younger, I was able to deal with this issue no problem, and actually started seeing much improvement in her this past summer. She was taking gymnastics and swim class and excelling. Even earning the "best listener" award at gymnastics several times. She started school in Aug though (public preschool) and has now started backsliding on her listening and focussing skills and started more serious behaviors. She is back to, in gymnastics and dance classes, rolling around on the floor when she's supposed to be standing, not paying attention, and grabbing the other kids. This past month she has also started a new behavior where public toilets being flushed is bothering her. She has now started holding her ears and literally cringing at the thought that one of those automatic toilets is getting ready to flush on it's own. At first I thought she was just kidding, but watching her and her face is telling me that they are really bothering her. Her school is telling me now that she is having issues with hitting and pushing kids, something I have never seen from her until these past couple of months. It is to the point that they are now reminding me of their no-tolerance policy on hitting...in other words, I think they are warning of her possibly being kicked out of this preschool.
My husband has had very obvious ADD since childhood and many of her behaviors are things he used to do in school as well. He also has a sensory disorder (very recently diagnosed so I don't remember specifically what it is), and OCD. Several of his cousins have at least one, or combinations of, ADD, OCD, depression, anxiety....the list goes on. So I know things are in her DNA and there are several possibilities. I also know that she is so much different from any of my other kids and now, with her school career starting and so much on the line (as far as her academics and her self-esteem), I am actively seeking some ways to help her. I have tried to be fairly careful with her diet for over a year now, since my first suspicions of issues. I have also seen a big correlation between her "outbursts" and when she has things like brightly colored treats at parties, so I am aware that dyes affect her greatly. I am also looking into some of the more natural ways to deal with ADD, but at the same time am wondering if that is her only issue. Do you think it's too early to talk to her Dr? I tried mentioning her sleep issues to him at her 4 yr appointment, but only got told things I already knew and had been trying for years (routine, no TV for an hour before, etc). But now with behaviors affecting her school, I am debating if I should more aggressively pursue the issue. At the same time though, I don't think I want her medicated, so.....
I am so confused and thinking about so much at once. If you read this far, thank you. Any advice on what routes I should start looking at would be greatly appreciated too.