Hearing loss, new baby - tips

[Jlse]

New here - just found this part of MDC!

I have a child, 2 in a few weeks, that was born with hearing loss. Deafness is in our family and I grew up in a deaf household though I am hearing. My dd is my third child and did have some corrective surgery to help her hear. My parents were here with us and she seemed to do great.

Now after several months of therapy and no real change (though she picks up ASL much faster now) and only 6 weeks from a new little one coming into our family I'm getting concerned. She has been pulling on her ears again and even shut down during speech therapy this week - turned her head pushed away therapist and FELL ASLEEP! I have not had her do that before and she was well rested, not sick etc. I haven't had her ears checked again yet - probably call on Monday. Though I wonder if they would even see anything since it was missed for so long before.

Anyway I'd love some tips, support, etc. I'm worried about her getting needed attention after baby comes, along with the two older kids and homeschooling. I do have feelings of guilt after getting pregnant - we didn't realize she wasn't hearing until after pregnancy but felt like I shouldn't have missed that. I have just found out about and contacted a local deaf support group (not originally from here so took me awhile).

thanks and glad I found this area!

[PatchChild]

Hugs mama. Itdoesnt seem to matter if our kids are typical or have a special need, we can all carry too much guilt sometimes.

What is her hearing loss? Does her audiologist think she's hearing well with the aids? How long has she had them? How is your DDs sign language level? Is she starting to put two signs together? If she's working on learning two language at the same time, language can be a little slower to develop. Also, if learning ASL is going well for her, she might just be being a two year old and expressing her opinion.

Ds was born with moderate bilateral loss. It took him almost two years to start into spoken language, even though he was aided well from five weeks old. He just chose ASL as his language for a long time. We did our best to make sure he had lots and lots of time with his language of choice, as well as continued exposure to English.

[2boyzmama]

I can relate to much of what you wrote!!!

My second son has hearing loss as well as a bunch of other issues, and my third baby was not exactly planned! There was definitely a lot of guilt for me about that, wondering whether I would be still be able to give Connor everything he needed with a new baby (and vice versa!!)

There WILL be hard times, just like any time you add a new baby to the family. This is your fourth, you know that No doubt your daughter will go through an adjustment period of not being the baby anymore.

As for her ears...what kind of surgery did she have? Is she aided? What's her loss at now? That's so wonderful that she's responding so well to sign! Connor has done SO great with sign! He works his butt off in speech therapy, and his efforts are paying off, but he still relies on his signs a lot.

I know you said that she isn't sick, but it's so hard to tell with little ones. She could very well be coming down with a little something, just a spring virus of some sort, just enough that she didn't want to put the effort into using her ears. It truly is an effort for my son to focus on hearing and speech, so when he's the littlest bit "off", he shuts down easily. Heck, sometimes I WISH I could just shut off my ears for a while, you know?