Sensing There Might Be A Problem...Part 1

When my daughter was born and the nurses bathed her for the first time, she cried so loudly and was so hysterical that she drew a crowd.  The nurses and staff that were in the nursery, even other parents checking out their own newborns came to see what was going on with this one!

I like to imagine babies having little conversations in their heads, so I wonder if she was asking herself: "What the heck happened to my nice warm swimming pool?  I was floating and chilling out for my whole life and now this!  Something is very wrong! I need to speak with the manager!”

I know that most newborns cry during their first bath. I am sure it sucks being yanked out of your happy place, now naked, exposed to the chilly air, with strangers using weird devices to suck fluid out of your ears, nose, and mouth. But my daughter's reaction just felt over the top to everyone within ear shot. The nurses were laughing, not at her, but at the fact that she was so extra with the crying and all the flailing of her arms and legs.  She looked like the pug puppy on Friends that Phoebe got from her birth mother. 

It wasn’t until my daughter was about four years old that we began putting all the pieces of her story together and one day it hit me that this bath was our first exposure to her Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). 

If you aren't familiar, *Sensory Processing Disorder is a condition in which the brain has trouble receiving and responding to information that comes in through the senses. SPD may affect one sense, like hearing, touch, or taste. Or it may affect multiple senses. And people can be over- or under-responsive to the things they have difficulties with.  

Like many illnesses, the symptoms of SPD exist on a spectrum. In some children, for example, the sound of a leaf blower outside the window may cause them to vomit or dive under the table. They may scream when touched. They may recoil from the textures of certain foods. But other children seem unresponsive to anything around them. They may fail to respond to extreme heat or cold or even pain.

Many children with SPD start out as fussy babies who become anxious as they grow older. These kids often don't handle change well. They may frequently throw tantrums or have meltdowns. Many children have symptoms like these from time to time. However, therapists consider a diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder when the symptoms become severe enough to affect normal functioning and disrupt everyday life.

At 2.5-years old, my daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, the first of a handful of disorders we would be introduced to over the 8 years since. Even after 18 months of Occupational Therapy, which quite possibly preserved my sanity, my daughter will most likely need to incorporate these types of accommodations into her life indefinitely:

• Most of the lights in our house are turned off or dimmed about an hour before bedtime.

• We almost exclusively use lamp lighting in our house.

• Her bed and dressers are outlined with Red LED lights, which help her stay asleep. I don't necessarily understand this, but they work so I don't care why.

• White noise! Fun fact...I recently learned there are multiple noise colors. Who knew? I sleep best to brown noise. Green noise keeps me awake!

• We have a sensory swing on our patio to help regulate my daughter's nervous system when she is feeling overwhelmed by anything or everything. Three minutes in the swing is a gamechanger, but that must happen BEFORE the meltdown or it's too late and we just have to ride out the storm.

• I do what I call pre-gaming before we enter a large or potentially crowded facility, or when we are going somewhere new. I tell my daughter ahead of time where we are going and what is going to happen, then we discuss how she should respond so she can mentally prepare herself. This doesn't always work, but I know with 100% certainty, if I don't pre-game with her, all bets are off!

• I try not to ever buy the "wrong" brand. My daughter can tell by the way something tastes or smells that it's not the normal brand I buy, which by default is just wrong.

• Tagless clothing!! Who needs tags anyway? Just stamp that info right into the waste band!!

• All the slime! I cannot stand slime. It is cold and feels wet, but it's not really wet...what is that all about? I hate it! But when my daughter has slime in her hands, you can literally see her entire face relax. I also don't love the mess it makes when she and the neighborhood kids make slime at our house, but it improves her mood so much that I happily sweep up all the glitter and scrape the dried glue off my patio or kitchen floor.

• I am sure there are more, but I hope you get it!

I have so much I want to share about Sensory Processing Disorder and its impact on our lives, but for now I will leave you with a funny story!

Like many kids, my daughter ate the same thing for breakfast every morning for what felt like three years...one Nature's Path Organic Gluten-Free Dark Chocolate Chip Waffle with cream cheese. One day, she took a bite and immediately asked if I bought a new brand of waffles. Mind you, she was 4 at the time. I had not bought a different band of waffles! I am not THAT stupid!!!

Well, she said the waffle tasted wrong so she could not eat it. After she went to preschool, I checked the box to see what might be different. I Googled the waffles to see if the recipe had changed. I even called the company to ask what could possibly be different. Guess what, they had recently changed distributors for this brand of their waffles. WTF? Why the $#@^ would they do that full well knowing frozen waffles are consumed primarily by children, many of whom have an acute sense of taste and/or smell?

Guess what! That was the very last time my daughter ever ate a Nature's Path Organic Gluten-Free Dark Chocolate Chip Waffle. They lost a very loyal little customer!

*WebMD | "Sensory Processing Disorder", March 14, 2023. Medically Reviewed by Dan Brennan, MD, written by Brenda Goodman, MA