ALL the supplements my four younger children are on. One is SleepVance to help my one four year old sleep. She will stay up till 1am, or wake up at 3am. So I have been buying that for her, and what I didn’t add in the picture was my nine year old’s melatonin. She is on 5mg after the paed suggested the original dose was too low for her and she perhaps needed 4mg. I can only find 5mg. Works ok!
One was chewable zinc, but my non- talking twin hates that specific gummy so I bought the syrup for her. Right NOW (the picture was taken two months ago.) they are all on the liquid one anyway, as it contains more zinc per teaspoon at a lower price, than the chewable gummies. It’s less pain on my back to dispense tablets than it is to bend down to each child and feed them a spoon of syrup. But yeah, the magnesium and zinc are cheaper in syrup form.
So, these are all supplements that research claims help with certain aspects of ADHD and autism. There are also essential oils but it…I don’t even know if THESE are helping, to add extra is just pointless. Mood, ability to think, reasoning, calming…You’re meant to ‘overdose’ them as it has been seen that most of these children lack these nutrients in the amounts non neurodivergent people have, but that would be even MORE expensive. And three are on prescription meds too. And even with these supplements, I don’t give every single one every day, to try slow down the usage. I DO give Omega 3 every day. But again, not in the huge amounts they state.
Why buy them?
Desperation. I struggle with the symptoms more than the children do. It’s emotionally taxing, and now that my husband has been on leave, he FINALLY gets it. He finally sees the pain of raising our non- speaking four year old who can’t communicate in a way we understand and wants/takes things that she shouldn’t have, and wants things done that are impossible to do, leading to mega tantrums. (Like wanting to balance an orange on top of a pen and acting as if WE are refusing to even when we show her the things she wants are physically impossible.)
He finally understands the non-stop heartbreak of watching your precious child not able to put you in her world. And it is breaking his heart. I downloaded a playlist of specific classical songs that research has shown helps with brain development. I call it “Brain music.” I play it when the children are eating. Research claims 20 minutes a day would be perfect. I don’t always get that because the very angel worrying us the most is extremely mobile, getting up during meal times and going all over the place.
But I AM thankful that both twins love it! Classical music isn’t always lovely sounding! But my talking twin (A) will start making her constantly present bunny dance, and shouts, “ It’s brain music!” And my non- talking twin stops chewing, and gets this look on her face as if she’s digesting the tunes. With an enigmatic smile on her face. It’s too sweet! It’s like I’ve given them a huge treat.
Yesterday, my husband wondered how much an e-speaker would cost, so when the twins have quiet time in their rooms, we quietly pipe brain music into our non- speaking twin’s room, “for my poor girl especially.” Now he gets it. Now he gets it.
I can never explain to those who don’t live it, the constant strain of having all these children with significant challenges, but especially having HER- a child we so desperately want to reach but can’t.
I tried to join them for family worship two evenings ago. I stopped because both twins see me as the FoodMaster, constantly asking me for stuff to eat and drink when I pray with them and when I put my talking twin to bed. They never do that with the others. My non-talking twin grabbed my hand, pulled me and struggled to finally bring out “p-p-peanuts and raisins.” I congratulated her for asking for them! Then she took me to the FREEZER and gestured for me to get her an ice lolly. She has asked for them by name at least three times in her life. But that’s the nature of the game. Abilities she had just disappear. She no longer calls her daddy, “Dinosaur.” But she doesn’t call him Daddy either. I preferred dinosaur to nothing.
But yes, the word meaning issue is a struggle I’ve noticed for a while now. She will say a word. Blurt it out after great difficulty. But what she says isn’t what she MEANS. Like meaningfully looking me in the eye and randomly shouting out, “Dolphin.” I can tell that’s not what she wants to say. And it’s a struggle in my eight year old son too. He will string together sentences that are grammatically correct most of the time, but he has no clue what the words actually mean. And he will throw tantrums thinking what was said meant something else. I ask him when I can tell that what he’s saying is ‘wrong,’ what he means. But he can’t re-phrase. Like when he has just returned from a drive with my husband asks me, “Does dad have driving skills?” What does that mean to him? And of course he does, given he has just driven him. So what does he mean? It’s scary and draining. How do you change it? How do you fix the brain so that you all understand each other?
I don’t know.💔
They said I should write a book 