Our babysitter made me cry

alizabethy

A little background: Our DS has a speech delay, and we've got him scheduled to be evaluated to see what's going on.

He has a sitter who watches him about 12 hours a week. She's watched him for a year. Today when I got home from work, the sitter started asking me all kinds of questions about how we spend time with DS. I guess when she's home with him, he drags her to the TV to watch Sesame Street, etc. He even brings her the remote. He's grown bored with many of his toys (we've started buying new ones as fast as we can), and he spends a lot of time running around and babbling. She tries to get him to sit and play with toys, but he's always on the move.

I've been worried about DS for several months now because of his lack of speech and some other ASD markers, so I know I am extra sensitive when people ask questions. But for some reason, I feel extra terrible after this incident. I've been crying on and off all night. I guess I'm upset because I've actually been so excited for the past month or so, because DS's comprehension seems to have grown by leaps and bounds. I'm so proud of him.

Anyway, I'm not sure why I am even posting this - other than the fact that now I feel like a big failure. I thought we were doing better, but now I feel like garbage. And I'm wondering if I should think about putting him in a preschool setting so he's less bored at home.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. I don't mean to be a downer, but I don't know where else to turn.

 

 

Aimelynn

((((((HUGS))))))

I don't much experience with speech delays or ASD, but I just wanted to offer you some support. My son is a preemie and ever few months we get "Development Assessment Surveys" to fill out, and they always make me feel like crap. Drew has multiple limb differences and he is doing fantastic - he is walking along furniture and using his hands to do pretty much everything that kids with "normal" hands can do, but then I get these surveys and I have to check "no" for more than half the questions and it overshadows all the amazing things that he is doing.  

Personally, I think that your son's babysitter was out of line. As I said, I don't know much about ASD, but your son's behaviour doesn't sound much different from what I would expect from a child his age. He's only a year and a half! At that age my daughter didn't play with toys either, she just dumped all her toys out of the basket and sat in it (She did the same thing with her books). I know it's easy for me to say to not let it bother you (I probably wouldn't take my own advice!) but that's what I'm going to say. Cheer up Mama! It sounds like you love your son very much, and that you are doing your very best for him. That is all that matters. 

Florak8

I know how you feel. My son is behind on milestones also. I work from home, and if I am not either doing my job-job or doing exercises with him or caring for him or cleaning, I feel guilty. Which is really ridiculous, but I think that it comes with the territory of having a special needs child.

I totally understand what you mean, when you get excited because he is making progress and then someone reminds you that he is not what they expect. It's a punch in the gut feeling.  

Also, I am betting he is asking to watch TV because he sees babysitter time as a treat. Kids that age love children's programming, so if someone new comes over, they might be prone to think "Maybe I can get her to let me watch the show I love!" 

Finally, I also know how it feels to think people are questioning your parenting. Early on it really aggravated me to have all these strangers asking about the minutia of how I care for my baby. I read a zillion books and carefully weighed every choice for my pregnancy and now my child.  I see people doing a super-crappy parenting job around town and think "These people get a free pass??" Now I have gotten to a point where I just kinda flip it in my mind and sell it to myself as "Hey, it's another person who wants my kid to have the best chance. Embrace it." Most of the time that helps!

I hope you feel better. I am so glad to have this board and know that I am not alone in these feelings! Thank you.  

Makinroom4baby

I know what you mean. Jayden has several diagnoses, including PDD-NOS, and I find myself wondering if it was something that I did wrong as a parent. He fell out of the bed at 6 months old and even though he's had an MRI and a CT scan that showed nothing is wrong, I still worry about that. Also, he HATES going outside and I wonder if I've just been a lazy parent. He doesn't really like books and I wonder if I read to him enough as a baby. And I also blame myself for feeding him gluten for 2.5 yrs before finally finding out that he has Celiac Disease. But I only deal with those fears on the hardest days. It's mommy guilt at it's best and it sucks. Just keep reminding yourself that the fact that you do realize that something is wrong and that you take the proper steps to getting him help makes you a GREAT mother!!

bugmommy

I think you are doing great.  I have 2 children with ASD and even after the first was diagnosed, I wasn't sure what was going on with the 2nd until he was about 2.  Although they are both on the spectrum they both present very differently.  You aren't blind to the warning signs and you have him scheduled for an evaluation.  Honestly, as hard as it was, I think its great that you sitter sees the differences and can give you a perspective on how he is with other people.  A lot of sitters might just turned on the tv and would have been happy they didn't have to do anything, so you've obviously hired a good one. 

It is VERY hard to see all of the delays and saying them out loud to people makes it more real some how.  In our case, no one close to my DS #1 saw the differences except for me (he met all of his milestones on time, including speech).  When other people started to notice that he used speech in an unusual way and that he wouldn't engage with other kids I was relieved I wasn't insane, but at the same time it suddenly seemed worse because other people were noticing it AND pointing out even more things. I remember having a little mini breakdown when I realized the extent of the issue.  I think it was fear of the unknown more than anything else.

Don't let the delays take away the victories.  You should still be proud of the progress.  All parents are proud of progress and it doesn't make a milestone any less special if it happens later.  If anything, you both worked harder to get there. 

If he does have ASD, you may not be seeing boredom, you may be seeing inability to focus.  With the preschool thing, I think it could go both ways.  My younger DS needs preschool (started around your DS's age), thrives on the structure and activity, and he has learned so much there.  For my older DS, he wouldn't have been able to have handled preschool at that age.  He had/has huge separation anxiety and has a really hard time with peers.  At that age, I could barely get him used to a nanny, let alone a classroom with other kids.   He's done great this year at age 3, but does still require extra support from the teacher and has services as well.

lazysusan

Aw, he's so little.  It sounds like you're very dilligent.  Attention span at that age is not very long at all.  I had a babysitter complain about DS and his behavior and say things like "he doesn't play with the other kids."  She would say this as he would be actually playing with her child.  She did not see anything positive with him.  She made me cry on more than one occasion.  I pulled him to go to an in home preschool and he is thriving. 

alizabethy

Thank you guys so much for your responses. I feel so much better knowing I'm not the only one who's gone through something like this.

I appreciate your kind words, advice and support.