Sleep Troubled Infants May Have A Higher Risk of Getting ADD/HD

When does ADD / ADHD start? Is it possible to spot infants that will develop ADHD and what are the signs to look for?

It seems to be that there is a preliminary study showing that infants that have sleep related problems may be at a higher risk for developing ADD/HD by the time they are five or so.

Its hard to tell about these studies because we just never really know.  A part of me feels like the incidence of ADD/HD is increasing because of a couple of factors:

1. We are diagnosing it more and it is becoming more acceptable for your child to be diagnosed and medicated.

2.  Our children’s brains have to be wired differently these days and I wonder if 100 years from now the evolution of the human brain is going to be a lot different.  The reason for this wiring is because of all the processing the children are expected to do. They are more visually and audibly stimulated because of our control. Immediate gratification is common.

In another study I was reading tonight it said that some ADD/HD children were originally diagnosed as colicky infantHs.

Where the Journey Starts

For most people who have ADD/HD touch their children’s lives I think we know it from the moment they are born.  I can only talk from my experience but I have also talked to many others who have had similar experiences of their children who also have some form of ADD/HD.

I was lucky enough to bring Max home from the hospital. There was no lag time or foster care time.   The first few days of infancy there were two things I noticed about Max.  For starters he was very alert.  From the moment he was born he seemed to have a natural curiosity about things.  He also didn’t sleep much.  I didn’t think much about this because I figured all babies just didn’t sleep.  He seemed to only sleep on top of someone and for the first few years of his life that was his permanent position so that I could get some sleep at night and go to work in the morning.

He was hypersensitive about his surroundings.  He was often lulled to sleep by the motion of a car but was easily awoken when his car seat left the base.

I wish in the beginning I would have paid more attention to the extreme alertness and curiousity, I may have been able to pick up early that he was different.

About the Family

Before I start to post here maybe it would help to know where  I am coming from.

As a family we have been officially struggling with ADD/HD since our son was five and a formal diagnosis was made.  There were signs and symptoms before then though and I’ll talk about those.

Max is currently seven and is our only child.  I often joke that having Max is like having ten children, but physically there is only one of him. He was adopted and there is some interesting info out there that suggests a link between adopted children and add/hd. We don’t know much about his birth parents medical history so we don’t know if family members of his also suffer from this condition.

My husband and I both work full-time and Max is in a regular educational environment.  I am a teacher in a middle school and I think this offers a unique prospective on kids that have ADD/HD

Starting this Blog

I am in the midst of writing a novel about dealing with ADD/HD as a parent. I can’t always write down my thoughts inside the novel so I am hoping that the blog can keep track of them until I can get them on paper.

I also hope that others will share stories that I can use in my book