[tri-med] Re: still not smiling???

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Irene Smith" <irene67@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

>   OK, I have MORE questions for you all!  My Caroline is still not smiling
at 7 months.  Now granted, she has really had a hard time over her 7 months
and has had only very few >periods of time of actually feeling OK, but I
thought we'd see some smiles by now!

Alex at 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, .............he was a somber,
expressionless (98% of the time) peanut. He was so floppy that maybe his
"smiler" didn't have the strength to work either.

It was approx. 9-10 months of age when he finally broke through that "blank
slate" wall he'd been behind. I can still remember his first laugh like it
was yesterday. We were at my folks house and all of us were laughing so hard
at/with him that we had tears in our eyes and I just kept saying "listen to
him!". We had no idea what triggered it other than we were laughing. Then we
kept laughing because Alex was and so he kept on because of us. It seemed
like it went on for hours but was only 5 minutes or so.  :-)

When Alex was 3 months old we were taking an infant stimulation class. All
the other babies were 6 weeks old but we'd wanted him to be stronger (yea
right) before beginning the class. The other babies were SO interactive with
their Moms that it was a bit depressing to me.

The nurse teaching the class had also taught our childbirth class. She'd
also been the one who'd taught the breast feeding class that I took. And
she'd visited us in the hosp after Alex was born. So she had a clue as to
who we were and what we were dealing with. Anyhoo.............

I finally talked to her about it. She said that the interaction between an
adult and an infant is a 2 way street. ~By them cooing, smiling, reacting to
us they egg us on to do more~ When you have a child who doesn't do that it's
work/laborous for the adult because there's no positive reinforcement,
nothing to make it fun or seem worth while. It can be exhausting when it
should be a learning/loving experience.

She also pointed out that as a first form of communication with our infant
it's the beginning of a relationship. Again, when you don't have that it's
much harder to form a personal relationship. We respond to personalities and
when you don't have one to respond to it's harder. At that point Alex really
had no personality to speak of. Not even many likes/dislikes.

Even when Alex was an expressionless little lump he was a "studier". We just
KNEW things were going on behind that mask of a face because of his eyes.
Alex is not a gregarious person these days but he does have a great smile.
:0)


Michelle mom to Alex (16, partial trisomy 14 mosaic) and Molly (13)
MichiganUSA


                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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