attachment issue or fad?

Hi there What I have to say may or may not be useful....I'm certainly no expert. I'm a new adoptive mom myself. My son came to us at 3 yrs old and was still drinking out of a bottle (only milk). Everything else he'd drink out of a cup. I assumed that since he was fully able to drink out of a cup, he had no need for the bottles. However.....I soon came to realize that his bottle was one of his few "security" items, and that NO, he didn't NEED it, he just wanted it! To this day he refuses to drink milk out of a cup, without throwing a tantrum. My advice would be to TRY reasoning with your child.....make a deal that she can only have say 1 or 2 bottles a day, and make it her choice when she has it. Eventually I'm sure she'll feel secure enough to give it up. HTH Tam

My 8, now 9 year old also wanted to do this. I let her. Just not all the time. It wore off and now she does not need or want to. She also had a couple of pacifiers. If it is limited to when she is at home, she will probably grow out of it very quickly.

Holding and rocking my children while feeding them from a bottle was one of the bonding strategies we used when each of our 3 children were placed with us. My son was 2 1/2 so it worked pretty well. My daughters were 4 and 5. It was part of regressing to an earlier stage where we could establish a connection and build on it. My 5 year old really liked it so I kept it up for a couple of years and then told her that most babies outgrow the bottle in a couple of years and so should she. I quit doing the bottle feeding after that time but she still likes to drink out of a bottle once in a while at now age 10. The other two gave it up pretty easily. We have good memories of those times. ;)

Good advice from the posters above. I'm rather more concerned about your apparent complete lack of background information concerning the children, especially as they are coming out of foster care and had a previous adoption disruption. Its amazing that they are able to hang onto anything from the past. Let your child keep the baby items for now, and just limit her use of them to within the family. Many more issues are going to present themselves as they adjust to your family, and using baby items is likely to become the least of your concerns. The best advice for you at the moment is to make every effort possible to get their history from whomever has it. You'll need it. Graham

my adoption worker is going to try and get the information on the 11 yo. she was only in the adoptive home a year when she was removed. she has no background on the 12 year old. the 12 yo was in the adoptive home about 5-6 yrs. it is believed both adoptions were through a private agency, so will make getting the information on them almost if not impossible. i guess i am just going to have to do this by the seat of my pants, hence the question about the baby bottles. but then, when you have bios, you function this way at times too. been there, done that. i am sure i will have more questions in the future. the one great thing i have going for me is that i work for the state welfare agency, and have access to many cw, cps, and counselors daily in my office. thanks for everyone's help. i will be taking this one step at a time.

Many children who have experienced trauma and repeated moves exhibit regressive behaviors...that is because they never completed important developmental steps in a nurturing relationship in which contingent-collaborative communication and responsive care were abundent. I have two suggestions. First, you really should get the children evaluated by a competant professional/therapist who is trained and experienced in attachment and adoptive/foster issues. You can probably find someone in your region who is a member of The Association for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children at [url]www.ATTACh.org[/url] That is important. Children as old as yours and who have been through what little you describe have adjustments and issues that need to be professionally identified so that you get the support you will need to help your children heal and connect with you and your family. Without knowledge of their issues and specific techniques to use, you are working in the dark. "Automatic" parenting (what you do naturally) frequently does not help such children. Second, I would allow the regression. When children get what they need they do move on. My youngest daughter used a bottle up until age 7 or so and eventually just didn't need it anymore. My experience is that if you provide regressive experiences (do the things you would have done had you had the children from birth) you will go a long way to helping them heal and form a more healthy and secure attachment to you...let you take care of them and form an authentic affective relationship. Best wishes,

the girls show numerous "young" behaviors, i.e. building forts out of blankets, playing in the bathtub with toys, etc. i allow whatever they want to do. the youngest tries so hard to be older, but just can't quite seem to manage it. she likes doing the activity, but has no interest in really learning about what she is doing, i.e. learning to spin alpaca fleece. she loves spinning it, but won't take the time to concentrate to do it right. i decided to start her on crocheting instead. the older is adhd and on medication. she hardly sleeps at all. this weekend she just couldn't sleep, so climbed into bed with me and was instantly asleep and slept well all night. the next night she stayed in her room. last weekend she forgot her meds at the fh, but i really could not tell the difference in her behavior with or without the meds. maybe she was just trying harder for the weekend. they are both seeing therapists at this time and have been for at least a year, but the foster home they are in now will not allow any type of "child" behavior, so i'm sure that is why i see more of it on their weekend visits. hopefully my fc license will come through soon so i can have them full time while the adoption process continues. it's been reported to me that the older girl shows a lot of anger. i have seen her display this behavior with the driver who brings her to visits and her present fm that doesn't like her. she does not show these behaviors to me, but then i am sure we are "honeymooning". when i do notice the behavior with others, i talk to her about it and the need to have some control over this behavior. she listens and acknowledges, but just doesn't like being treated like a baby - although her actions in my home show she needs and wants some of this "babying". when the girls are placed with me, i will be able to participate in some of their counseling sessions with a therapist that comes to my office once a week and is very good with children.

While my son was much younger when he came home (almost 4) -we did not start with a well trained attachment therapist until he was almost 8. Taking him back to earlier stages in development was a big part of his treatment. No one had ever held my son to feed him a bottle, no one had picked him up when he was hurt, no one cuddled him when he felt sad and lonely. I found that we had to go back to his earlier development and correct these wrongs. I treated him like a baby as much as I could. Bottle feeding was a big hit with my son. Due to RAD, he would engage in a power struggle at first and try to not let me hold the bottle. But I persisted, advising him that I was going to hold the bottle for him - because I missed being able to do that when he was a baby. We used a bottle 1 - 2 times daily during attachment therapy. Then once he was back in school, would have a bottle to reconnect every day when he got home. Eventually went to when he would ask for it. I found that he would want the bottle after a rough day at school. Along with the bottle feeding, we also encouraged regression in many other ways. We cuddled a lot, I still cuddle with him in the AM to help him wake up. We played lots of toddler games like this little piggy. It was amazing to hear an 8 year old say "do it again" over and over, just like a toddler!!! We did lots of craft work, especially messy things like finger painting and paper machie. My son is now almost 10 and doing quite well. I believe that babying him for as long as he needed it was a key part of his recovery. I also agree very much with Art regarding the need for a well trained attachment therapist. My son started therapy at age 5 1/2. He was so violent by age 7 1/2 that I could no longer keep him safe when he raged. None of the earlier therapies helped, I actually feel that he got worse. An attachment therapist is one of the few with training to look at the many issues (not just reactive attachment disorder) that impact on an adopted childs life. Our first therapist was a well respected child psychologist. He was not even able to identify an intense grief reaction in my son (this is easily recognized by therapists skilled in working with adopted/foster children). Be prepared, both parent and child are in therapy. This is not something where you just drop your child off for an hour and they get better. Therapy with an attachment therapist is very different from traditional therapy. A parent leaves a session with an attachment/adoption therapist with practical tools to use at home. Our kids come with a history and we need to alter our parenting techniques to help them manage that history. Because my sons issues were so significant, I was actually trained in therapeutic parenting. For my son to heal, he needed therapeutic interventions 24/7. It was hard work, but well worth it. A few things you mention also incline me to suggest you look into sensory integration issues. This is more common in children with a history of neglect. Again, you need to use properly qualified specialists (OTR). Untrained OT's lack the skills to recognize and treat SI. My son can become very ADHD like from sensory overload (for him it's usually auditory). Through OT we have learned a lot of techniques to help him attend and stay focused at home and at school. Good luck and keep us posted. DimasMom

thank you all so much for the information you have given me. i have also done extensive research on things that i could face, but the information you have all given me really helps a lot. the older girl, adhd, loves to snuggle and cuddle, and i give her as much as she wants. the younger likes it when i initiate a hug or cuddling or tickling, but she has been hesitant to initiate it. i believe she will be the hardest with attachment issues. i don't think these girls got much attention in the adoptive home from things they have told me. there were 9 adopted kids in the home. the younger girl told me that their adoptive mom used to give the older girl increased dosages of ritalin to get her out of the adoptive mom's hair. but, the older girl wouldn't take it and would throw it out, knowing she wasn't supposed to have it. she is always asking me if she is too hyper. i have grandkids 1,2 and 3, so what is too hyper? she thinks my 3 yr. old grandson is more hyper than she is. and she could be right. it is just so hard trying to identify and deal with issues when you only have weekend visits. hopefully the wait for them to move won't be too much longer. since they both have expressed an interest in crafts, i am stocking up on different activities for them, so we can all do them together. i also build dollhouses, and when i am confident that they are willing to listen and learn from directions, we will get the one i am working on out again and do together. they were great this weekend herding the alpacas into the catch pen and worming them. they even did one by themselves. one step at a time and one day at a time . . .

Thanks to Dr. Art for making the distinction about "automatic parenting" - so many families have felt disabled when their child does not respond to regular or "normal" parenting methods. I think its very hepful to express the need as "beyond automatic parenting". And congratulations to alpacamom and her family for your wisdom and ability to take it all one day at a time! Graham

can't stress enough the need for all available history on the children, in order to move forward in a postive way. Alarm bells go off for me when I hear "disrupted adoption". Try to find out as much as you can, it will only help.