2 Year Check Prep

It’s almost time for N’s 2 year check with the health visitor at the surgery.  It does amaze me that they think it’s a normal environment to check a child’s development in, but I guess we’ll see how it goes once we’re there.  If it’s anything like the last doctor’s appointment, N will be nosying around the room and chatting away with no qualms.

I’ve heard friends from elsewhere say theirs were group sessions with the children in the room just playing and then they’re observed.  Seems a more natural environment although much harder for one person to observe them all in any detail.

We got our letter through last week and the appointment is a few days after his 2nd birthday.  In the envelope came 2 questionnaires to complete before the session, which we’d then go through together.

Ooh, I love questionnaires, so that was lucky, although I couldn’t help wonder how accurate a parent completed questionnaire on their child was likely to be?!

All pretty straightforward, although being asked to get your toddler to try and string macaroni (er, our macaroni is tiny, the string doesn’t fit through), or large beads (I have tonnes of beads, but non large enough for a child to be playing with, and even the largest don’t have big holes in…I tried providing beading wire, but that was too complicated for N).  Large pasta was tried (rigatoni) but we had to mark it a ‘not yet’ as he could put the string in, but hadn’t worked out he had to switch hands while holding the pasta and the string in place to push it further through and out the other side.  That’s a seriously hard challenge for a 2 year old in my opinion.

The most typical was with the communication side of things.  It asks if you say 2 words, does the child repeat the 2 back.  That’ll be a no.  We just have the second word like an echo.

What’s brilliant with N is give him a deadline of an appointment (even if he doesn’t understand deadlines yet), is that naturally he seems to hit what he needs to.  Before the letter arrived, he knew and was speaking hundreds of single words, but putting very few together.  I complete the questionnaire saying he only does this ‘sometimes’.  Next thing I know, he’s stringing two or three together all the time.  Plus some random words in his usual jabbering style that I have no idea what they mean, but they’re obviously his version of sentences.

Am quite looking forward to the check.  Our health visitor (if it’s with the usual one) is nice and it’ll be great to have a chat about what’s been going on and how he’s been getting on.

What were the 2 year checks like in your area?