A guilty little post from me......

It has been a week of ups and downs here.  At Beth's last speech therapy appointment I queried whether she felt that Beth might have Speech Apraxia.  Beth struggles to form new words and when she learns a new word can forget it just as easily.  She will say the same word in many different ways, there is little consistency.  (Apart from the word NO!)  I have been suffering from a great deal of guilt and have felt very stressed about it.  The last year  with being pregnant and dealing with a little baby have made her therapy take a back seat and that is time I will never get back.  I am trying my best to make up for it now.

Beth is starting on a new journey with her diet.  She has always been gluten, dairy, soy and corn free. For 2 years she was also failsafe, but we never quite got to the bottom of her digestive issues.  We have now started her on an alkaline paleo (low fodmaps) diet.  What a difference it has already made.  She used to be a bit of a farter if I am honest! But no more!  I think she may be fructose intolerant, but we shall test this further down our journey.   I have been making sauerkraut and kombucha, and have some water kefir grains to get started with too. She is now having lots of bone broths, and she loves it, which is just wonderful. How I wish her elder sister would embrace the new as easily......

As well as her new diet we are also starting her on Therapeutic Listening. She started last Thursday.  We have already seen some changes in her, and are delighted!  As often as possible we try to get Beth to walk 1.6km (a mile) a day.  Well since starting on this therapy she has had much more energy and enthusiasm with her walking (or rather she prefers to run). Her pronunciation on her favoured words has increased clarity.  Her role play based games have become more complex, she set up a beautiful tea party for her teddys on Sunday, we were amazed.  Basically, she has become more switched on.  Sadly her sleep has worsened though, but this is a small price to pay, and hopefully will calm down with time.

We have also been trying to encourage Beth to brachiate, to help strengthen her upper body and lungs. She is not very keen on our brachiation ladder, her sister (Poppy 6) on the other hand is a monkey on them. But she loves the trapeze!  It has been amazing for both of them to be honest, and there are regular disagreements in the house over their "shared" usage!

So the basic point of this post is to say,  I am riddled with Mama guilt, but I am trying really hard to move her forward. She is resisting therapy a little though, and little miss stubborn 3 year old is harder to persuade to do things than little miss 2 year old.  I have a bit of a battle on my hands, but I will try my best.

This journey isn't always easy or fun.  I love my Beth, but I wish everything wasn't so hard for her.    I want so much for her to go to mainstream school with her sisters, I want her to have a job, fall in love, to be happy.  I know it is down to myself and Mark to get her there.  I have to work harder!  If money grew on trees, I would be flying to America to the IAHP, and doing every health/gut related test possible but sadly that just isn't possible, I can only do what I can do.

The path of choosing to do natural therapies with your child is exciting, and very rewarding, but also very guilt inducing.  The latest suggested diagnosis of speech apraxia has hit me very hard.  What can she do if she can't find her voice?  There is so very much to do.