Tongue-tied but not for long

Quick word of advice: if your baby is born with a Tongue-tie, ask the hospital to snip it asap. It's the best time to deal with it and avoids anaesthetised operations and speech therapy later on.

As a newborn, tongue-tied Leon was feeding well so the hospital advised to leave it, and see if it 'snapped' or 'stretched'. A few months later our GP eventually referred us to paediatric ENT after we raised our concerns about how it would effect his language learning and noting how there been no 'snapping' or 'stretching' of the frenulum linguae (the extra skin attaching the Tongue to the bottom of the mouth).

At 6 months, we saw the ENT consultant, and reluctant to operate on it- given no current inconvenience to Leon or the feeding - he asked us to come back after Leon turned 1. We were told it was likely to stretch - but reading the word of WikiPedia (reliable source!) it probably wouldn't have changed significantly.

During early gestation (as early as 4 weeks) the lingual frenulum serves as a guide for the forward growth of the tongue. After birth the tip of the tongue continues to elongate, giving the impression of the frenulum retracting, though in reality this has been going on for some time before birth. This is what gives the impression that the frenulums of some previously tongue-tied infants will "stretch" with age and growth. In reality the tongue often just grows beyond the frenulum, although some do also stretch and/or rupture after mild accidents. Many others continue to cause problems throughout life, unless corrected

Now almost 20 months old Leon is saying a few words. At the recent consultation with Mr ENT I listed all the reasons we wanted the snip:
- We're raising him trilingual and although vocalising well, we don't want to make it harder for him to pronounce certain sounds with a tongue-tie
- Socially, we don't want him to be teased for a lisp or unable to stick out his tongue
- More to hubby's concern, he needs full use of his tongue to be be able to 'French Kiss' amongst other things... (I DON'T want to think of my toddler engaging in that kind of stuff, but I remember an emotional plea from a 13 year old girl on a Netmums forum telling how awful it was to have a tongue-tie that she couldn't get a boyfriend and "please deal with your child's tongue-tie if they have on" That stuck with me)

I asked for recommendations on hospitals to approach should we need to do it privately, armed with a short-list of 3 London hospitals found at the Baby Friendly Initiative by UNICEF.

Mr ENT agreed to the operation but I could tell he was reluctant. I suppose it's preferable to avoid surgery on a toddler- particularly if it involves having a general anaesthetic for 15 mins, but I was happy with the outcome. He explained that it will bleed a bit but should scar over quickly ie. No need for stitches. Doesn't sound too bad- but hard to think of a little 20 month old going under for an operation.

All I had to do was sit and wait for the letter with the date. I received the letter.

However, the operation is due in November- TWO days before we have a 12-hour flight to Mexico. Brilliant. I couldn't get through to Mr ENTs secretary on Friday so fingers crossed it will be OK or we'll need to change it for our return...

One year on

So, on the 5th January my little baby was one year old. I felt so proud to have sprouted a little darling such as Leon that has grown so much in a year. It felt odd looking back to when he was just a vulnerable little being new to the world knowing that he's now so independent (well... to an extent!) and no longer seems like a little baby.

And so here is his journey from little sprout to little boy:

Newborn

3 months

6 months

9 months

1 year

How we celebrated
My family have a tradition of seranading the lucky birthday girl/boy with Las Mañanitas in the morning en masse mariachi-style with a guitar. Today was no exception and hubby and I belted it out  much to Leon's amusement. I even donned my sombrero for the occasion.

Estas son las mañanitas, que canto el Rei David,
A los muchachos bonitos se las cantamos asi,
Despierta, Leon, despierta, mira que ya amaneció,
Ya los pajaritos cantan, la luna ya se metió. 

*This is the morning song that King David sang
We sing it like this to the cuties
Wake up, Leon, wake up, look it is already dawn
The birds are already singing and the moon has gone 

This was soon followed by a kingly breakfast then lots of playtime. We celebrated his birthday with family and friends young and old at a local pub where we cut his amazing jungle cake (if I say so myself ;) and sang Happy Birthday FOUR times (English, French, Spanish and Italian.... it got tiring).

Jungle cake in the making!

After enjoying a lot of the cake he was spinning on the table round and round like a breakdancer laughing a lot - perhaps was a sugar rush?? Maybe he was just really happy and lavished the attention.

Birthday Boy

Proud parents

Present from Abuelita and Grumpa (Note the dirty belly from post-cake spinning and commando crawling)

At 1 year

• He's made the transition from commando crawling to all-fours crawling and can go VERY fast
• Starting to cruise around the furniture but not walking yet. 
• Big Boy: Weighs almost 12kg and is bigger than 98% of babies his age and at 81cm is taller than 91% He sleeps well :D Yay! 
  
• Has 9 teeth and molars coming through but still a bit of a tongue-tie
• Eats on his own - LOVES food especially lasagnes, stews, meat, lentil soups, spinach, grapes, petits filous, clementines
• Gives the warmest cuddles, is rather sensitive but still a little brute. Rather chilled but very curious. 
• Communicative, and plenty of vocalising. Seems to respond well to my mum and respond "Sssssssss" when she encourages him to say "Si". He used to say "Abue" (granny in spanish) but hasn't for ages. 

And myself? Well - keep trying to stay on top of everything but it is tough to find time for myself. I find it very rewarding whenever he does something new, or copies what I've shown him - be it putting money into his piggy-bank, or getting down from the bed. And I love his hugs so very much. I'm happy we've found some really nice mum and baby friends and that he's happy at his childminders where he goes one day a week.

So excited to see what's in store for this year!

Tongue tied

Little Leon was born with a tongue-tie, apart from that he's perfect - he just can't stick his tongue out. No problem with feeding which is why the GP won't refer us to have it snipped - but we WANT to have it snipped! Not because of fears of having a lisp (Jamie Oliver has one and it can be cute!) or to save him problems of kissing later on in life... but mainly because we're raising him to be trilingual and this might make it that bit trickier for him. Also, he wouldn't be able to pronounce his own name easily! Hopefully the GP changes her mind on Monday when we see her next and will refer us due to speech issues.... If not, could anyone recommend a specialist in London area?