When did sensory issues start for your child?

[Wild Lupine]

My son is 2 1/2 and is pretty mellow tempermentally. Recently he's started complaining about sounds being too loud. Now it seems like everyday some new sound is bothering him that didn't bother him before- traffic, doing the dishes, the noise coming from electronic equipment. Today he refused to listen to a CD he normally loves because the noise bothered him.

He's been so mellow about stimuli until now that it's been surprising to me that he's suddenly so bothered.

Just wondering what others experiences have been.

[a-sorta-fairytale]

For dd it was at birth.  Whatever her sensory issue was it was worst at birth and through lots of work has gotten way better.

Ds just turned 3.  At his birthday celebrations he covered his ears when people sang happy birthday.  I have noticed him being more sensitive to sounds lately.  But, i don't think he is more sensitive or that it is a sensory thing, i think it is a 2/3 year old thing.  I think it is that he is much more aware on his environment and is also in the age where they try to control things.  He has noticed my response to his objection to noise and also my reactions to noise.  He is testing out his powers and likes/dislikes and boundaries.

[Wild Lupine]

Originally Posted by a-sorta-fairytale 

For dd it was at birth.  Whatever her sensory issue was it was worst at birth and through lots of work has gotten way better.

Ds just turned 3.  At his birthday celebrations he covered his ears when people sang happy birthday.  I have noticed him being more sensitive to sounds lately.  But, i don't think he is more sensitive or that it is a sensory thing, i think it is a 2/3 year old thing.  I think it is that he is much more aware on his environment and is also in the age where they try to control things.  He has noticed my response to his objection to noise and also my reactions to noise.  He is testing out his powers and likes/dislikes and boundaries.

I's helpful to hear your children's experience. Maybe DS is just experiencing a deveopmental leap in relation to his environment.

[Linda on the move]

I didn't start figuring out the sensory thing until she was 2, but with hind sight, there were signs even when she was a baby. Even when she was a tiny baby in a sling, DD tried to hide her face and was not happy in situations such as shopping. She was always easily overwhelmed.

It looked different at different stages. She's 14 now and I wouldn't really say that it's gotten better or worse, just changed. She couldn't cope with a normal amount of sensory input for a kid her age then, and she can't cope with what is normal for a kid her age now (we are just sooooo much better at working around it)

Does your son have a history of fluid in his ears? Fluid can mask noises and make everything softer, so if he had fluid but it's more clear now, everything is now louder for him now.

[mamadebug]

My DS is now 6 years old, and in retrospect, his sensory issues were evident in the first few days after he was born - although I didn't recognize them as such at that point.  I thought he was just a quirky, high needs, very sensitive baby.  It became clear to me over his first year that there was "something" more there than just being an intense, sensitive kid.  I didn't know at that time that there was such a thing as sensory integration disorder.  When he was three years old, and after many talks with our pediatrician and his preschool teachers, did I start to learn that there was a name and a diagnosis for all of his behaviors and reactions.   It was interesting to me, though, that as I talked with teachers and other parents, I heard from many people that their kids went through a period of being more sensitive to sound and other stimuli around age 3 and that there kids passed through that phase (although, I don't know at what point).  At this point, DS still has those sensitivities, but we have learned ways to manage it better. 

[a-sorta-fairytale]

Originally Posted by Wild Lupine 

I's helpful to hear your children's experience. Maybe DS is just experiencing a deveopmental leap in relation to his environment.

When i worked with that age group it was the same too.  DD was so different from the kids I had worked with.  Now, DS is like a little textbook of the struggles of a 2/3 year old - lol!

[blessedwithboys]

In hindsight, it was birth for both of them.

I figured it all out when ds2 was 2yo.  He was waaay worse than ds1 ever was.  Ds1 was 9 when they both started OT.

[kelly1827]

We started noticing dd1's sensory issues around 7yo, but in retrospect, they were there all along (like op said, from infancy) we just chalked them up to other things (her food allergies, her oral aversion, her GERD, her clumsiness was from Dad ). When we first went for an OT eval, the OT asked me about her infancy and when I described how she slept at daycare it suddenly hit me: she was the only kiddo who needed to be in a swing, with a receiving blanket horseshoe'd around her head, binky in, and a light blanket draped over the swing. What we just thought was quirkiness was actually SPD manifesting itself then. Her oral aversions are largely textural, but we thought it was because milk was in so many foods that we'd made her nervous about eating.

She was fairly adept at coping until she reached the developmental stage where kids are more self-conscious about behving differently. When you're 4-5yo everyone's a goofball, but at 7-8yo kids start wanting to act cool and her odd behaviors stood out more, e.g. putting her fingers in/over her ears when she was auditorally overstimulated and getting visibly distressed.

Have you ever read The Out of Sync Child? It's a great book about sensory issues, esp. in young childhood. HTH!

[LynnS6]

I have to say that at birth -- or at least at 4 months. Ds would never nurse in public. He was so overstimulated on a plane flight at 4 months that he stayed awake for 10 hours straight. I screamed when he bit me nursing at 7 months and he went on a 5 day nursing strike. However, I did notice an increase in certain kinds of sensitivities at age 2 -- suddenly he had tactile sensitivies and was more sensitive to sound. I wonder if there's a reorganization of some parts of the sensory system that happens between 2 and 3. I think an increase in sensitivity is pretty common. Most kids outgrow it. My kid's got worse until we pursued OT at age 5.

[~Boudicca~]

In hindsight I think it was around 3-4 months we noticed that she had sensory issues.  She is a seeker and she has always been waaayy ahead of the curve in regards to milestones, and by 9 months old she was flat out RUNNING (it is really weird to see a baby that small have that much speed to their walking) and right around then is when her sleep issues really started to present themselves.  She went from sleeping 4 hour stretches (not great at that age but still ok for me) to waking every 1.5 hours.  It was like having a newborn again.  Age 2, while not that great for most toddlers, was epically hard with this kid, and now she is almost 4 and has been in OT for about 9 months.

[beachcomber]

My DD has had proprioception and vestibular issues from birth. So laying her down on a bed or in a crib were always impossible. She also could never be swung high until she started swinging herself. She also couldn't handle going upside down until this year. Her sound sensitivities surfaced more around the age of 3  but her therapies have given her tools to handle overstimulation and that's helped her a lot. Same goes for her visual sensitivity. She doesn't get outwardly upset but when she's visually overstimulated she freezes up. So lots of kids being noisy and playing in a play area would just turn her to stone.

[moonfirefaery]

Corbin has been sensory seeking for hard touch ever since he was about 18 months old, I think. He used to just throw himself on the ground, when he wasn't upset at all, just for funsies. He still does. If he showed it before then, I didn't pick up on it. Honestly, until his speech therapist pointed it out to me, I had no idea that his little quirks were sensory seeking behaviors, or what that even meant!

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Looking back, I think that ds1s sensory issues started very very early. He is a sensory seeker. He would clench his jaw when nursing, all the time. When he got older, he would spin and spin and spin in his exersaucer, to the point where we were afraid he'd get sick. To get him to sleep, we would have to pat, rock, bounce and walk all at the same time. We realized that there was something a little off with his speach very early on, because he would make the sounds for words, but not clearly. Now we know he has an auditory processing disorder.

[raksmama]

 With my son, I think it must have started between 2 and 2 ½.

Before that, he was always intense, even as a newborn, but not with sensory issues. It seemed that from one day to the next he did not want to go on the swing, get his hands messy with things like finger painting, or walk barefoot on sand. He became a very fussy eater. I really do not know what caused this.

At 13 He is a lot better now . He had Occupational therapy and I had to do a lot of things with him at home.

[beachcomber]

Originally Posted by QueenOfTheMeadow  To get him to sleep, we would have to pat, rock, bounce and walk all at the same time.

*blink, blink*

Wow. I hadn't realized up until reading this that it was a sensory seeking behavior in DD. We had to do the same thing. Plus then once she was asleep we couldn't put her down or she'd feel the movement and wake up. No matter what we tried, we could never put her in her crib. She sensed the motion of being lowered and panicked. Every. Time.

[trghig]

My oldest DS (3yr) has sensory processing issues and a severe speech delay. His sensory issues have pretty much always been there but it wasn't till I was getting him evaluated for speech that I found out about the sensory issues. I always just thought they were quirks. But hindsight I can see them from infancy. He never ate baby food- to this day he won't eat puree or things like oatmeal. He hated things like sand on him. He always wanted to wear his shoes, etc. He needed even as a baby constant motion. He started moving very early and never slowed down. Even before he was mobile he liked constant motion. In order to get him asleep as a baby I use to have to hold him super tight (think deep compression) and rock him. As a baby he hated loud noises and to this day still does. He is in OT and it has made a huge difference.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Originally Posted by beachcomber 

*blink, blink*

Wow. I hadn't realized up until reading this that it was a sensory seeking behavior in DD. We had to do the same thing. Plus then once she was asleep we couldn't put her down or she'd feel the movement and wake up. No matter what we tried, we could never put her in her crib. She sensed the motion of being lowered and panicked. Every. Time.

YUP! I didn't really know much about co-sleeping at the time, but we did it because it was that or never ever ever sleeping!

[mom2happy]

About 2 years old. She had more words and could tell me what was wrong. I was able to put together the behavior with the causes.

Smells, too many sights, sounds, high ceilings, ehoes, clothing, food textures................................................ all made her wildly upset.