The Highly Active Infant at age 4

So, I still get lots and lots of hits for my "highly active infant" post. I thought it might be heartening to hear how things turned out once we got past the infant stage. Also, I will note that while Charlie was very, very busy so was his sister (although she was somewhat better at self soothing). When Charlie was a baby, I was really worried that he might have ADHD. I worried he would never learn to sleep for any length of time. I worried I was doing it all wrong. I worried that I would never manage to babyproof well enough that he would see age 2. None of these things were true either for Charlie or Megan. Although, I will say my house has some impressive baby proofing at this point. :-) While Charlie never met a drawer he wouldn't open, Megan never met something she didn't consider appropriate for climbing. To round out the group, Noah doesn't seem nearly as much on the always in motion side but he is OMG fussy, fussy, fussy but, that is another type of baby entirely.

Anyway, for those staring at the infant that won't sleep, can't be put down, and seems to be in perpetual motion, let there be light...

There does seem to be something to the whole assertion that these types of children are gifted. Now, I'm not really prepared to go down the whole "gifted" path at this point but I will say that both Charlie and Megan tended to run ahead of the curve on most skills. Megan was speaking in 2 word sentences by 12 months and making 8 block towers by 13 months. Charlie got a speech evaluation at age 2.5 and was about 6-8 months above where you would expect. He's been able to read a clock to the 1/2 hour since he was a late 3. In short, they do seem to be busy, in part, because they are learning at a very rapid pace.

Charlie, especially, is a very empathetic little boy. For the longest time, he would befuddle his preschool teacher by crying every time another child cried. She would always be trying to figure out what had happened to him, assuming she had missed something while attending the other child.

Charlie does still need a lot of help to wind down and is still easily overstimulated. We bought headphones to use in the car so he can block out Noah's crying. He will often wear them, turned off, even when Noah isn't crying just to enjoy the quiet. He will go up to his bed for a break when things are too busy and we have never had a large birthday party for him. I hosted a playgroup for Megan's 2nd birthday with around 8 children and that was too much for him. He retreated to his room with my mother for most of the gathering. We are very careful to not overschedule him- skipping children's choir, pee-wee soccer and any number of other activities. But, it's a careful balance as he does get bored at home. The priority for us is to make sure we are home in the evenings as we still stick very closely to a bedtime and bedtime routine. He finally started sleeping through the night at 3 years, 2 months. So, it does happen eventually. :-) He now sleeps through all manner of disturbances with our remaining big challenge being trying to figure out how to night train him- a project for this summer.

Charlie shows no signs of ADHD and got a glowing report from his preschool teacher about his academic readiness for preschool. It gets better. It really does.