ADHD or something else?

Hey you can message me! My daughter has a lot of the same issues that you're talking about in this post and she just got diagnosed with ADHD and ODD

This is my toddler to a T and her head banging outside when regulating emotions is to the point where she has to be in a pushchair to stop her seriously hurting herself. We are going through the possibility of adhd too and again she can't be tested till next year when she's in school. You're not alone with your struggles but definitely sounds like adhd

@Emma are you from the US ? Or somewhere else ?

@Kara I'm from the uk

@Emma I’m so glad someone finally relates! I literally did this the other day because I tried to hold him for cuddles to help with calming the situation and he was going to drop out of my arms so I put him on the floor safely to stop that and he rolled over and started banging his head which scared me, so I had to result to forcing him into the pushchair so at least with all the movement he can’t go anywhere and hurt himself 😅. Had a moment today where he became angry over a small action and he hit his head on the floor again and now has a huge lump and I hate it, always 3+ times in a day🥲. I don’t even react in a bad way, I always cuddle and wait for him to calm down to speak but it doesn’t do anything. No one else seems to understand when I mention this and I always just get told ‘oh that’s bad’ ‘sounds hard’ ‘yeah my son has tantrums too’ but it’s more than a tantrum and the usual methods just don’t work to deal with it

@Emma ohhh okay that makes sense. I've heard a lot of mom's say it's harder to get a diagnosis in the UK then in the US. I'm in the US and it took us over a year to get my daughter diagnosed and she's 4 about to be 5 and we are finally getting her into some therapy & she finally has a medication appointment. We're totally struggling over here.

@Emma also my doctor told me that they usually don’t accept referrals until 2+? So I think if you keep a record of every incident it should help? I literally went back about 3-4 times within a month and he said even if there’s nothing right now he can do, by 2 years you can be referred

Have you tried a weighted blanket? We have a 2kg one that we take out with us - it's a nightmare because they are quite heavy but it's been a life saver! We used to be sat on the ground for at least half hour in a public place when she had outbursts like that but now when they happen we get her blanket and just cover her head and body with it and the weight really helps calm her to the point they now only last about 5/10 minutes. @Kara here in the UK you can't even start the diagnosis process until 5. My daughters 3 turning 4 in december and this has been going on since she was 2.

@Emma I haven’t no! Where do you buy one and why do they help? (If you know), could you do it in the pushchair also? It definitely happens a lot in public (probably more triggers) which makes it an absolute dread to go out especially with people thinking you can’t ‘control’ your ‘bad’ child when it’s just the emotions can’t be tamed, not easily anyway. I completely understand having to wait 30+ minutes, I don’t even want to rush it for fear of it getting worse or happening again

I got mine from amazon, we have a 2kg one we take with us when out and a 3kg one which she goes to bed with. They're both paw patrol aswell which my daughter is obsessed with. I'll attach a screenshot as its quite a lot to write. Yes we use it all the time in the pushchair she'll either have it over her head and down her body (under the bumper bar) or she'll get us to put it over the hood of the pushchair and down her body, it makes it really dark underneath and blocks everything out around her which helps her to calm. This is why we ended up getting a double pushchair because we found it so much safer for her when out as she goes from one extreme to the next - she'll either have an outburst and bang her head on the concrete or she'll dart off into the road in front of cars and finds it funny as she can't comprehend the danger of it.

Evaluations for autism are after they're 2 years old. Adhd evaluations are after they're 6 years old. The head banging is not necessarily adhd/autism. It's pretty normal for kids to bang their heads when their upset or having a tantrum, even for neurotypical kids. Sometimes, neurodiverse kids don't bang their heads. There's a lot of other signs to look for to see if your kids neurodivergent. (I have a bachelor's in psychology, and I work with special needs kids and I'm also a parent/wife of neurodivergent kids/husband and I'm also neurodivergent)

@Emma oh I've noticed their is alot of mom's from the UK in this group and I've noticed how they won't diagnose until 5 or older. My daughter turns 5 in December and we just now got diagnosed

@Emma oh my god, my child has done the exact same thing!!! I find especially when he’s starting to get tired he will step in the road and I tell him no the cars drive there and bring him back and then he keeps doing it laughing and going further into the road. I do understand he is still young enough to not know the danger but it’s still scary to do that

@Nicky that’s very interesting. That would mean he suspects autism as he told me to try from 2 years old. I know head banging / sensory seeking and bad sleeping can be part of autism but developmentally he’s been early or as it should be and he talks so much so he never showed any other signs of it. Head banging and being unaware of hurting himself and causing cuts and huge bumps on his head but still continuing to do it, doesn’t seem normal to me, no one I know experiences this.I explained how bad it gets to my doctor and even he was shocked about it. It’s not just casual head banging cos I’m angry it’s I need to hurt myself to release the anger and that can be on tiled flooring, concrete floor or brick walls and it can be triggered by anything and it’s an instant outburst that he can’t calm down from. It’s really really hard to regulate his emotions in all the normal ways, they never work sometimes he gets angrier (this is how my adhd brother behaves also)

@Nicky I also find myself struggling daily with him and his behaviour. Most days I’m on the verge of a breakdown because it’s so overwhelming dealing with this extreme emotions. It’s also hard to do simple things like getting him dressed, he doesn’t stay still long enough he will jump off everything and run away and just wriggle and move and not stay still. I told my friend this and she responded ‘that’s not normal I tell my child to get dressed and he lets me dress him, he should be able to do that’ and it doesn’t work like that. I have to literally pin him down to get him dressed and put shoes / coat on which tires me out before we even get out of the door

I've worked with 2 different boys at different times who did the same head bumping as you described, but they turned out to be neurotypical and grew out of it eventually. This is one of the reasons why I mentioned that there's a lot of other signs you need to watch out for. Autism and ADHD criteria overlap, which is why autism evaluation is suggested to do first if the child is older than 2 years. Then kids need to be reevaluated every 2 to 4 four years to make sure there wasn't any accidental misdiagnosis due to the child being too young and/or new information about the subject is discovered. After 4 years, the diagnosis becomes obsolete if the child is not reevaluated. I know the struggle is real. Have you talked to your child's doctor about giving him melatonin? I also second the weighted blanket. Also, try fidget toys, such as the chewy toys for oral fixation.

@Nicky thank you for explaining the process, I guess that makes sense as to why it takes so long, I thought it meant nothing happened until age 4 and I can’t imagine going that many years with no help when the behaviour gets worse every few months. Nothing has been recommended to me to help with anything unfortunately, I will look into a weighted blanket though if that helps, what sort of fidget toys do you recommend?