Hellobee

Our little Sweet P didn’t have the easiest first year. Between tongue/lip tie, reflux, colic, and an FPIES diagnosis, there was a whole lot of trial and error going on. So, it didn’t surprise us when she always seemed to be hitting milestones on the later range of “normal.” So much of those first few months were spent just trying to get her comfortable and not screaming that there wasn’t a whole lot of time spent doing tummy time, or even reading books. We were just trying to figure out how to get her happy and how to solve the mysterious digestive issues she was having. But once we got all that figured out (or at least had a diagnosis and a plan), we thought she would start meeting more milestones, and she did! Just always a little slower than we anticipated or remember them happening for Little Piñata. I asked our pediatrician soon after she was born 4 weeks early and having a hard time if she recommended us calling Early Intervention, but she recommended waiting until milestones were officially late and not just slow.

She is just so adorable I can hardly stand it.

At her one year check-up in December the pediatrician asked if she had any words. I knew in the back of my head that it was about time for this, but we had been so focused on her gut and feeding issues that I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about when her first words should officially start. The doctor didn’t seem concerned when I said that she babbled a lot, but not meaningfully yet, and just recommended we do a lot of repetition. So, we left and I tried that, and even though we got a whole lot of smiles, we still didn’t get any official words. A month later after asking in some mom groups and doing more research on talking timelines, I decided to ask the pediatrician for a referral to Early Intervention and she agreed that if my gut was telling us to that we should go ahead and get the process started.

That was in January. It took about a week for the Early Intervention service coordinator to get in touch with us, and then a couple more weeks to get something on the calendar that wasn’t cancelled due to bad snowy weather, but mid-February we eventually had her preliminary evaluation! And a couple of weeks later we had the official evaluation. Both times they were really happy with where she was and assured us that she wasn’t too behind and reminded us that every child moves at their own pace. She wasn’t walking yet, which I personally wasn’t too worried about, but they were glad that she had so many “pre-walking” skills, like standing for short periods of time without needing support, and cruising along the couch. After these 3 different meetings and evaluations (and over a month), I figured she wouldn’t qualify for any services. But I got a call yesterday to come up with her plan, so we met today to decide what the plan would be going forward.

I’m sure Early Intervention is different in every state, but here in TN the child has to be 40% delayed in one area or 25% delayed in two different areas. Sweet P turned out to be delayed 28% in 3 different areas, so she qualifies! I’m pretty excited about her being able to get services, especially since she is so close to the cut-off. The service coordinator explained that she didn’t have any red flags and that she’s confident that within 6 months – 1 year she anticipates that she will be right where she should be.

She is good at standing and carrying around pens. We joke that she is a little Bob Dole.

We set 6-month goals for her in the Adaptive, Communication, and Motor domains, which was right up my alley as a former teacher. For adaptive (self help) skills we set goals for her to perfect her pincer grasp and use utensils. For her communication skills we want to see her using words to identify her immediate family members, communicate her desires (such as hunger and thirst), and animals and animal sounds. And for her motor skills we set goals to see her walking on both even and uneven surfaces and up and down the stairs.

We still have one more evaluation (they sure are thorough aren’t they?) to decide how often she will see a physical therapist, but she is going to connect us with a developmental therapist who will focus on speech and her self help skills once a week.

I’m mostly feeling so grateful that I listened to my gut and called to get her evaluated! I know people often say that kids have their own timelines and it all turns out fine and it probably would have, but I’m so glad we live in a country that values childhood development and helps out families and kids who may be behind. I figured I would either be told her development was fine and she didn’t qualify and I would have that peace of mind, or I would find out she qualified for services and we could get her more specific help for free – either way would be a win!

I’m excited to see what these services look like and how well she does with them. She is getting more and more of a little personality these days and getting more interactive, so I think she will have fun with her therapists. I look forward to sharing more about how it’s going and some tips they teach us along the way. Since her evaluation she has actually starting saying “no” and “mama” with meaning, and took 3 steps on her own (only once and she refuses to do it again.. haha) so she is already making some good progress!

Did any of your kids benefit from Early Intervention services? Were you happy with their progress?