Yappy and I went to see the movie Delhi - 6. Sonam Kapoor's name in the movie is Bittu but for some reason my self-confessed hard of hearing husband thought it was Mitu!!! So it was decided there and then that if we ever we have a daughter her nick name should be Mitu. That was February 2009.
December 2010, we are blessed with a daughter. Straightaway we start calling her Mitu. Born just two weeks before due date through a non-complicated c-sec operation, Mitu was a healthy baby weighing 2.75kg at birth.
Things were progressing well. At three months she was making cooing sounds, head balance absolutely fine, at six months Mitu is sitting without support, at nine months she is crawling beautifully and by her first birthday our baby is up and running! All milestones on time...no problem...
Wait...may be there is a problem.
The day Mitu started walking..she took to running! There was no stopping our baby Bolt! Run run run..fall on the sofa..back to run.. run ..run. All day...am not tired...even in the night I can run..run..run. And guess what? Despite so much running around, Mitu couldn't sleep well at night. At first, we thought that the poor baby's legs must be hurting that's why she is not able to sleep. I took to pressing her legs before sleep. That helped a bit but still she would get up in the middle of the night and not sleep back till morning.
At the same time I also started getting worried about Mitu not picking up her first words. I remember asking our pediatrician at 15 month vaccination visit about it. He asked a few questions and advised me to spend more time talking to the child and keep a close watch.
Mitu was about 17 months, when I observed a slight squint in all her pics since she turned one. Yappy and I took her to another pediatrician with her apparent squint at the top of our mind. Dr Ramalingam was clear that squint is not an issue with our child but its something else. She should be talking by now. If not in sentences then at least a few basic words. What's worse, she is not even responding to her name and not following instructions at all!
He suggested we visit a development pediatrician and referred us to Dr Jyoti Bhatia. And the day we went to meet her was perhaps one of the most depressing days of our parenthood. Dr Jyoti took an M-Chat test on Mitu. She failed on various parameters of a typically developing child. When she asked me to call out to my child...Mitu would just not respond. I'd go on mitu..meetuuu..meeeetttuuuuuuu...but Mitu was slipping in her own world with a fixation for plastic bottles!
Imagine your child not even acknowledging your presence forget about following instructions! Embarrassment? no..insult?..may be shame? But these expressions would mean nothing in front of what we were about to discover.
Dr Jyoti Bhatia raised an alarm. Told us to get a hearing test done ASAP, start talking to Mitu in only one language (as ours is multilingual household), start with an early intervention program as soon as possible and yes..start calling her by the name that you would want to use for school.
That's the day I lost my Mitu and the struggle to find Avani began.
December 2010, we are blessed with a daughter. Straightaway we start calling her Mitu. Born just two weeks before due date through a non-complicated c-sec operation, Mitu was a healthy baby weighing 2.75kg at birth.
Things were progressing well. At three months she was making cooing sounds, head balance absolutely fine, at six months Mitu is sitting without support, at nine months she is crawling beautifully and by her first birthday our baby is up and running! All milestones on time...no problem...
Wait...may be there is a problem.
The day Mitu started walking..she took to running! There was no stopping our baby Bolt! Run run run..fall on the sofa..back to run.. run ..run. All day...am not tired...even in the night I can run..run..run. And guess what? Despite so much running around, Mitu couldn't sleep well at night. At first, we thought that the poor baby's legs must be hurting that's why she is not able to sleep. I took to pressing her legs before sleep. That helped a bit but still she would get up in the middle of the night and not sleep back till morning.
At the same time I also started getting worried about Mitu not picking up her first words. I remember asking our pediatrician at 15 month vaccination visit about it. He asked a few questions and advised me to spend more time talking to the child and keep a close watch.
Mitu was about 17 months, when I observed a slight squint in all her pics since she turned one. Yappy and I took her to another pediatrician with her apparent squint at the top of our mind. Dr Ramalingam was clear that squint is not an issue with our child but its something else. She should be talking by now. If not in sentences then at least a few basic words. What's worse, she is not even responding to her name and not following instructions at all!
He suggested we visit a development pediatrician and referred us to Dr Jyoti Bhatia. And the day we went to meet her was perhaps one of the most depressing days of our parenthood. Dr Jyoti took an M-Chat test on Mitu. She failed on various parameters of a typically developing child. When she asked me to call out to my child...Mitu would just not respond. I'd go on mitu..meetuuu..meeeetttuuuuuuu...but Mitu was slipping in her own world with a fixation for plastic bottles!
Imagine your child not even acknowledging your presence forget about following instructions! Embarrassment? no..insult?..may be shame? But these expressions would mean nothing in front of what we were about to discover.
Dr Jyoti Bhatia raised an alarm. Told us to get a hearing test done ASAP, start talking to Mitu in only one language (as ours is multilingual household), start with an early intervention program as soon as possible and yes..start calling her by the name that you would want to use for school.
That's the day I lost my Mitu and the struggle to find Avani began.
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