18 month pediatrician visit

We had Sebastian's 18 month ped visit yesterday, and it went great. He weighs 26 lb 13 oz, and is 33 1/2 inches tall. We asked about some turning in of his toes that he's had for ages, and the pediatrician did confirm that he has some tibial torsion going on, especially in his left leg/foot. It's nothing serious, and usually resolves itself without intervention. I had it, too, when I was a baby, and had casts on both legs when I was less than a year old to correct it. Apparently they don't do casts anymore (thank goodness), and it doesn't affect his walking/running/climbing like a manic, so they told us not to worry about it. But at least we knew we weren't crazy wondering about his feet pointing inward.

He's on track (or ahead) on all milestones, with the possible exception of expressive language. The pediatrician was not actually very concerned since he DOES have about a dozen words, and tons more signs, and his receptive language is fantastic. But after I told her about my concerns (having a limited repertoire of consonant/vowel sounds even in babbling, etc.), she said it wouldn't hurt to get his speech looked at. She admitted that some of what I was talking about was over her head, because she wasn't an SLP, but that if I was concerned, it might be good to get him checked out.

She gave me the number for Child Find in our area (early intervention in the school system where I work...), and said I could call them for an evaluation if I wanted to. She also said that taking him to an ENT would be another step to check into, because of the possible tongue-tie issue. She left it up to us what we were going to do.

We talked about it for a while, and decided to check into the tongue-tie possibility first. If it's a simple matter of him just needing his frenulum clipped for him to start using more varied sounds, it seems like a whole speech evaluation wouldn't make much sense anyway. The most they could do would be to confirm that they, too, had suspicious about tongue-tie, and refer us to an ENT. So we'll cross that bridge first, and go from there. If we need to, we can take him for a speech evaluation later, but I think I'd still like to wait a while and work with him on my own before we start that process.

We're really focusing on getting him to verbalize more rather than just sign, and there has already been a bit of a difference at least in his attempts...he picked up on the fact that we wanted him to verbalize instead of (or in addition to) signing, and he's doing it. But everything is still pretty much a variation of "bah," so not much different there. I really just wonder if he CAN'T get his tongue up to say T, D, N, etc.

Anyway, so I called an ENT that a friend recommended (she took her son to him for ear issues), and they had an appointment for this Tuesday! So we'll be taking him on Tuesday morning to go get checked out. I'm NOT looking forward to the appointment at all, mostly because it'll be a nightmare holding him down and prying his mouth open so they can get a look in there. I've been trying to get him to do it for months, but there's no hope. He'll sometimes open his mouth to say "ah" when I ask him to, but there's no way I can get a look under his tongue...gah.

We'll have them check his lingual frenulum (one under his tongue) as well as the upper one between his upper lip and gums, as it seems pretty short, too, and extends between his front teeth. I don't know that it is affecting anything, but worth checking it out, right? He doesn't really ever smile where you can see his teeth, so I wonder if he just can't retract his lips because of it. Who knows.

I really wonder what they'll say, and what they'll recommend we do (if anything). The receptionist said that for younger babies they will sometimes do the tongue-clip procedure (frectomy) in the office, but for older kiddos it has be done in the OR. That kind of scares me but I guess we'll see how it goes.