Possibly ADHD in 3 year old...?

I have heard that you can't diagnose ADHD until the age of 5. I would hold off on it if I were you. SID is his diagnosis which sometimes mimics ADHD.

In the u.k most doctors wont diagnose ADHD until the child had started school. This gives a much better insight of the child and can also rule out other medical and social problems. I am both shocked and worried that you have been offered such powerful drugs for your child, he is still a baby and at 3 as with most 3 yr olds, he will test the waters. My child has Aspergers Syndrome and Adhd and is now 15. He has been under the care of the sleep clinic from birth as he has never ever slept. From birth to the age of 5 not once did he sleep more than 45mins, day or night so i know first hand what a drain it can be and the emense stress it puts the whole family under. There are so many natural remedies to help hyperactive children sleep so why is he on sleeping medication anyway. This type of med has bad side effects. Try the herbal tablet melatonin, please look this up as it realy does work a treat with my son now, only wished i knew about it years ago. Also, i spray my sons bedroom with diluted aromatherapy lavender oil. The results of the two are amazing. I am not anti-med, my child does at certain points in his school life need to use medication such as in exam settings when he is expected to remain silent and not to fidget in his seat etc. PLEASE!!!!!!! Get another opinion before you do anything

This is a tough one I understand what you are going through. We have a 4yr old that has been diagnosed with ADHD. We had so many problems with him from how he just couldn't sit still to doing destructive things and hurting his 2yr old brother. Then he started preschool and they recommend that we put him in special Ed if we did not want to medicate him. So we went to the doctor and he prescribed a couple different kinds of meds but he was so young that we had to break them in half and the taste was horrible and he would not take them then he prescribed FOCALIN XR 5mg and its breakable and we could put it on his food the only problem was how he reacted to it. He went from being Nathan to this zombie over night. So we tried for 2wks and the results were the same he just wasn't a kid. So we took him off it. Then we found two herbal supplements that are made for children with this disorder GOGI Juice and fish oil. You can buy the fish oil at health food stores but you have to order the other on the Internet or I can give you a number to call a lady if your interested. What i am trying to say is that some of it is probably being a 3 yr old (its tough) but I would not recommend meds this early I found out the hard way.

Your son sounds similar to mine. He has SID, speech delayed, and definitely shows signs of ADHD in preschool (he just turned 4) - however he was given a diagnosis of PDD NOS (pervasive developmental disorder). The developmental pediatrician that evaluated my son, said first, she would never diagnose a child under the age of 5 with ADHD. Ages 3-5 is a huge maturation period for boys in particular, so your son could change so much still. My son is a different child than he was a year ago. Gaining more speech helped my son TREMENDOUSLY. Became much more compliant and focused. Occupational therapy for the SID also helps with his focus and attention span.

If he isn't already, you should consider having your son in intensive occupational and speech therapy. My son receives his at our local public preschool where he attends 4 full days a week, and he gets speech/OT every day. I can't stress enough how much this has helped him.

Personally, I honestly would not even consider medication until at least ages 5-6. So many kids, with proper therapy and plain maturation, "outgrow" this. If you need to go that route - you need to think of ADHD as a medical condition. For example, if your child had diabetes, you wouldn't hesitate to give him insulin. If he truly has ADHD and is over the age of 5, medication may mean the difference of him being able to function in school or not. ADHD is extremely frustrating for the child as well.

Good luck, hope this helps you!!

My son has ADHD. I was very scared about that diagnosis so I took him to my doctor, another doctor for a second opinion, a child psychologist and the school counselor. I understand why you are leary but I have to say that I have not regretted it. My son is a wonderful boy and this disability (and it is a disability) was masking how fantastic he was. I did not start him until he was 5, once he was in school, because I kept looking for other alternatives. I started with a very low dose of Adderall. Now, my wonderful son gets to show how sweet and generous and kind he is. Before the medicine, he would try to give me something, and he would shove it into my face and force it upon me. Now, he is more calm and controlled. I agree that children are sometimes over medicated but if the child is monitored by caring, responsible parents, who are trying to help their child and not trying to make the child a zombie, then the medicine can be a great benefit. I have had to increase the dosage, as my son gained weight, but I make sure the increases are VERY small and that I watch him constantly for evidence of sleepiness and differences in his personality. The medicine did not take away his personality. Because I (and my doctor) carefully monitored the effects of the medicine, it was able to do the job it was created for; let my son slow down enough to be able to show his fantastic personality. I feel that I am a better parent for not closing myself off to help simply because of a bad stigma attached.

Please wait until your son is in school to go for the ADHD diagnosis. At three, being active is so normal. And so are short attention spans. I was told by a preschool teacher that my son had adhd when he was 2. Yes, he does (he's 16 now) but before he was seen and evaluated for that, he was evaluated by an allergist at 3...scratch tests and everything. He tested allergic or sensitive to 78 different foods. Taking him off all of those foods and then re-introducing them to see which were the worst culprits took time (a lot of time) but I found out that at 3, potatoes made him crawl out of his skin. so for a year he didn't eat potatoes and got regular allergy shots for dust and pollen, two shots twice a week. AND he rotated his allergy medications too every two weeks. When he started kindergarten and diet/allergy medication didn't help enough for him to sit still, THEN he was evaluated for the ADHD and started on Ritalin. But, please don't start your son on Ritalin or any other ADHD medication until at least kindergarten...1st grade if possible. It can cause kids to not grow as much. And if you do, please take "drug holidays" during the summers.

I believe that allergies, especially food allergies cause most of the problems in kids. My son would all of a sudden get a glassy look in his eyes, and act terrible, he would laugh if he hurt his little sister, or if he got time out.. nothing bothered him. At other times, he would look normal, and act so sweet. I had him tested for ADHD in first grade, and they said he had Attention Deficient Disorder. I did not like putting him on ritalin. Doctors didn't believe in food allergies then, and did not test him for that. Now, he is an adult, and had tests done, and found out that he is very sensitive to alot of things. I think most people have some kind of allergies and don't even know it. I know people who felt they had no choice but to use the ritalin, but, to me that should be in extreme cases. I think your child is too young to be on it anyway.. things can change. Try keeping track of what he is eating, and how he acts after he eats them. You may see a pattern. Good Luck.

ADHD....in a 3 year old? That's kinda strange for such a young age. You better be VERY careful with this one since most drugs used to treat ADHD are not very well understood and how they effect a child of such a young age is not known.

I would NOT allow my child to be reviewed at such a age for ADHD due to its hazardous position in her on-going development. Truthfully, most children who are put on ADHD medications don't need them. Also those medications have some very sever and not published side effects like drowsiness, dehydration, and even death in some rare cases.

I am a Juvenile Officer, I have studied these types of subjects very intensely, and I have to tell you to be cautious. Lastly, a little known fact is that ADHD diagnoses are primarily brought on by teachers since the drugs slow down mental processes and essential quit the kid thus making it easier for the teacher.

Don't do this to your kid at such a young age.

My 3 and a half year old son is in the process of being evaluated for ADHD. Yes, it IS possible to have it this young, especially if one or both of the parents have ADD or ADHD, or if it runs in the family.

At this age, large amounts of energy, defiance and inattentiveness are common and normal. Being so young, these traits aren't usually what Doctors look at while assessing for ADHD, instead they look at impulse control (do they do things without thinking that could harm them or others, and in turn, do not learn the consequences of their actions), and how they interact socially with other children (can they maintain a friendship or are they always getting in trouble for hitting, kicking, biting, etc.)

It is alot harder to accurately diagnose it at this age because they are still developing so much, but there are instances when behaviour does become out of control in comparison to a group of others in the same age group.

At my son's doctor's appointment yesterday, I asked about artificial colouring in food, and if that is a medically supported theroy. We too stopped giving our son foods with artificial colouring (as much as possible), particularly foods with red dye. With this, we did notice a huge difference in his behaviour and temperment. His pediatrician said that yes, it is medically supported, that food colouring has a greater impact on those with ADHD, but he stressed to us that eliminating those foods only help the symptoms be less severe, it does not eliminate or cure him of them. Most children can have foods with artificial colouring and be okay with it, but it has been showing that children with ADHD react to those foods in a much different and intense way.

We're currently putting him on a very low dose of Ritalin to see if it makes a difference in him. Like you, I am also wary of medicating him so young, but if it needs to be done, and it will help him developmentally, it's the best choice. I feel his proper development has to come before my personal feelings about medication.

This was a really helpful read for me when I was researching ADHD http://www.klis.com/chandler/pamphlet/adhd/What%20...

it has the symptoms and characteristics, as well as scenarios of children at this age who have it.

Good luck

My husband and I both suffer from ADHD and I have found something that really helped us both. We found that fish oil tablets really help this disorder. If I were you, I would not give anything for the ADHD just watch what you child eat(no MSG or HIgh Frotuse corn syrup) and do not feed him any fast food or soda pop. Instead of the fish oil tablets feed you son wild caught fish, but do not feed him any farm raised fish.