I never really post directly about my kids on here - for the most part these days we don't really have any issues that I am hugely worried about. However, there's this one thing that I've put off asking you ladies on here about for the best part of three years, because it is a little odd and I'm terrified that nobody will be able to confirm that it is normal or that it has happened to them.
Obviously, as many on here know, I do suffer with quite severe anxiety so I'm probably overreacting/overthinking somewhat but this has become a huge issue for me and recently it's really affecting my mood. Pathetic, I know, but please don't judge. I really need to get it off my chest.
Basically, my kid coughs on drinks and always has done. She will be 4 in July and it started when she was a tiny, breastfeeding baby. To cut a long story short, she struggled to cope with my very enthusiastic milk flow and coughed on milk a lot. She had several nursing strikes and that's when I started to become obsessed, thinking the choking must be causing the refusal to feed. We found out, at 4 months, that she had a posterior tongue tie. We got it cut. Slowly, she grew into my milk and the coughing stopped. She's still breastfeeding.
At 6 months, I made the mistake of giving her a sippy cup with a spout and a non-spill valve for water. I'm sure these are fine for some kids, but not for mine. I think with hindsight, probably because she had to suck so hard to get anything out, that she consistently ended up with a huge mouthful of water which she inevitably choked on. Cue more anxiety from me about her swallowing ability. We didn't think to try her with a free-flow cup. Instead, we moved her on to a valved straw cup, which she did much better with, but still wound up coughing on quite a few times a day.
After she turned 2, we got her a Munchkin Miracle 360, which is like a regular cup but with a big rubber valve on the top to stop it spilling. By this point, she was able to take several consecutive swallows per try without coughing and would only cough at the end of the drink if she coughed at all. This happened a maximum of about twice a day. Sometimes not at all in a whole day. So a huge improvement, but still not great when you go out for lunch and see other people's kids chugging away without a care in the world while you sit on the edge of your seat hoping your child isn't going to do it again.
It took until she was almost 3 for her to drink from an open cup without trying to 'hoover' the liquid into her mouth and choke herself. She CAN now do it and actually does really well for the most part - in fact, moving on to only open cups and a flask with a big open spout like the neck of a water bottle has been the best thing for her. After her sister was born, nearly 10 months ago, I pretty much stopped worrying about it as it became so infrequent, and I thought it was over. Recently, however, she was ill and coughing all the time so that I couldn't tell what was a regular cough and what was a drinking cough and it's brought it all up again for me, especially since her baby sister very rarely does this and thus I began wondering what is/was wrong with my 3 year old. I couldn't even begin to describe how obsessed I am with it - mainly because I'm kind of ashamed of how much this seemingly little issue affects me.
I should add that it doesn't bother her in the slightest. It's not that awful type of red face and streaming eyes, gasping cough you get when something goes down the wrong pipe. Her eyes occasionally water a little bit, but mostly it's just a sort of splutter, or a couple of decent coughs and she's fine again. Which is really confusing. She HAS had a coughing fit a few times where you can tell it's truly gone the wrong way, but these incidences are rare. I'm not worried about aspiration or anything - she has never had a chest infection or pneumonia or even an ongoing cough really other than the one she had recently. I'm not even that worried these days that she has a problem with swallowing as she CAN swallow, multiple times in a row. What baffles me is that if she coughs, it's right at the end of the drink ...?
She has no problems with development in any area.
She has no problems with food.
She had no problems with speech, other than the fact that she never shuts up.
She has been speaking 'better', for want of a less indulgent word, than most other children her age since she was 2.
So what the fuck is going on? I've rung our local speech and language helpline a couple of times and spoken to a few speech therapists (they deal with feeding and swallowing issues, not just speech) and none have been overly concerned as she has no symptoms or conditions that point to dysphagia (difficulty swallowing). Most recently, it was suggested that it sounds like she is trying to drink too much too fast without giving herself a chance to breathe so she ends up breathing in at the wrong time and inhaling the last little bit of water. I'd agree this is the most likely explanation, but it still bothers me and asking her to slow down, counting three swallows and then prompting her to stop, etc. is having little effect as she just doesn't care.
I know she seems to be growing out of it and I do feel ridiculous, but I'm having a real down day about it and just can't take it any more.
Can anyone relate? Anyone else's older child do this? Anyone have a kid who did this in the past who has now grown out of it? Please someone tell me it's normal ...
. They were all roughly 18 months - 3.5ish.
I really think it must be normal as there seem to be plenty of us with perfectly healthy children who all do it. I think maybe they just don't value being careful like we do.
It was never more than 2. So silly, I know. And I'm sure it stopped after my baby was born, but I'm managing to convince myself now that I was just so wrapped up with a newborn that I stopped concentrating on it so much. It seemed to start up again though at the beginning of March when she got ill. She got ill for a second time shortly after that, and now is ill yet again! I need her to stop being ill so that I can see if it goes away. :/
I think at that point your daughter was about 5 and it wasn't really happening anymore.
So I'm no longer worried about it (which feels wonderful), but in response, although it wasn't causing her any health problems, I think what bothered me the most was the fact that none of the other children I saw really seemed to do it, so I felt there must be something different about mine that might cause her embarrassment in the future.
