Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion how old was your child when you suspected...

It seems like a lot of these are "hindsight is 20/20" things ...

Yes, the doctors and nurses told us that ds6 was crazy alert at birth -- I thought they probably said that to all new parents. He *did* scream at the slightest change -- from the day of his birth, he'd scream if anyone other than ex-h or I held him (try explaining *that* to the doting grandparents! My parents just thought he was b*tchy). He rolled over three times at 3 weeks old and then stopped. People commented on how observant he was while we were out shopping with him as an infant. He was very high needs -- lots of yelling when he wasn't being held, freaking out at noises, etc. "High needs" is a nice way of saying what sort of infant ds6 was.

He tested HG+ when we did have him tested.

But I didn't *suspect* he was gifted until he was at least a year and a half. It just wasn't on my radar. And he wasn't an early talker (lots of ear infections, though he may have talked late anyway), so that wasn't an obvious tip-off for us. That's an important difference, in my mind -- looking back, there certainly were signs, but they didn't make me think he was gifted, just an weird baby!

Did others really think "gifted" at birth because of high awareness? Did you have experience with other gifted newborns, that made your thoughts went right to "gifted"? Because even though there were signs back in the newborn phase with my ds, my first thought certainly wasn't "gifted"! It's definitely more a hindsight thing.

-Hellooooo!

I think that may be it, the second, third, etc. child isn't as obvious because the attention isn't solely on them. They are much sneakier!

I actually remember now, Ped bending down and saying to big sis: "You do NOT do the talking for your sister......" I think ages 3 and 1 or 4 and 2.........

Totally H! Wasn't that brutal? I'm surprised I didn't totally lose my mind!

Seriously, it was awful. I felt so bad for them! And I couldn't do anything to fix it, and he shut his little yap the minute he was back with me or ex-h. It was seriously embarrassing -- but he was a newborn! What was I *supposed* to do!?!

No, I meant me,,,,,,,and you! I literally could not set her down for like, six months.....Argh!

I left her with a neighbor at six months, she foolishly took pity on me. She told me the child SCREAMED for almost two hours without ever stopping. Needless to say, I was never seperated from my child until she was closer to two!

LOL! They sound very similar as babies. He even had a fit with dh when he couldn't nurse ... hours of screaming, and finally I had to come home from my job (I was working at the college newspaper) and nurse him to sleep. It took about 3 minutes and he was out.

I remember walking endlessly around the block, with him in his Snuggli ... and then sneaking him out of his Snuggli onto the bed, and then sticking a pillow next to him so he thought I was there, and then creeeeping out of the room ... and enjoying the 15 minutes until he realized I was gone!

Oh, those days ... I still loved the newborn phase, but he was a little twerp. I'm glad I didn't realize at the time what a difficult newborn he was!

That was DS6, exactly! He literally screamed for his first 6 months. He wouldn't let DH hold him for more than a few minutes at a time, my mom was the only other person he would be ok with and even her it was for an hour max. I did everything 1 handed, the sling was my best friend and to this day I sometimes talk out loud to myself because I got in the habit of narrating my activities. I remember the rest of my family thought that I was just overprotective and needed to let someone else take care of him for awhile so he would "get over it". For some reason, no one ever offered to babysit again after the first time...

It was so frustrating because I was constantly being told it was my fault he was screaming, that if I would just ______, then he would stop. The only thing that cured it was when he started talking and crawling. I think he was just supremely pissed that he knew what he wanted and we were too stupid to understand, lol.

Huh. I'm zeroing in on the early rolling over. Both my DSs rolled over early--like within a few weeks of birth. They didn't do it regularly or reliably, but they both did it, and more than once. We figured it was a fluke and didn't even include that in their early milestones lists, but now you all are making me wonder if it was more intentional than I thought and may be a more common GT trait than I was giving credit for...

Weird.

Kriston -- I totally didn't believe it when he rolled over -- I thought it must have been a mistake! I have a pic of him fighting to roll over at 3 weeks, and then he did it ... it was nutty. And I have witnesses!

I didn't think much of it at the time, other than a nifty party trick ... but it could be there's more to it!

Yes. That was DS4. Fighting all the way. I just figured he was trying to poop and flopped over along the way! :p

DS7 rolled in a way that seemed more accidental...or easy...or something. But he did it more often. It didn't seem like he could control it, but it also didn't seem like he was trying to do something else and accidentally rolled over. It seemed like he just suddenly found himself rolling over. It was odd.

DH yelled at me for putting the baby down on his stomach for a nap once--SIDS being our greatest fear at the time, of course. But I KNEW I put him down on his back. I pointed to the kicked-all-over blanket and DH agreed that it looked like DS must have rolled over. Then DS did it a couple of times while I watched him. It freaked me out!

This was also the kid who got mad and literally threw his pacifier across the room at a few months old! (3mos, maybe? Less than that? He was nowhere near sitting up yet, I know that for sure.) We got the hint and never gave him a pacifier after that, obviously. But that was pretty freaky, too!