[hkolln]

Originally Posted by 5starday

How concerned should we be that the bipolar disorder may be passed on to our fd?

She so far has exhibited night terrors or awakening periods in the middle of the night. Sometimes we'll think she's fallen back to sleep and then her eyes will slam open and scare the heck out of us. She doesn't look like she's looking at us, but through us. She can be the happiest girl most of the time but out of nowhere will hit me so hard in the face for no reason. She has head butted me several times, once so severely I thought my nose had broken. She will act agressively towards another person (adult or child) in one instance and then ever so sweetly kiss them and bat her eyes at them the next instance.

Is this normal toddler behavior? Or should we be concerned?

Ok, now to me that sounds like normal behaviour at that age. Our daughter at that age would have terrible night terrors and scream out. She would get violent while asleep and not know what she was doing to the extent of hitting us and lashing out. There is no bipolar in our family. She outgrew it all.

Our other daughter's biomom has bipolar and was diagnosed with it. She is 10 and shows no sign of it. She does show mood swings but not drastic like a bipolar child. They will be happy one moment and depressed the next.

I would take the information you have and watch her. I think 23 months is way too early to diagnose this. It could be something she'll grow out of. If not at least you have that information to move forward later on with therapy and possible medication.

[myForeverkids3]

I have some concerns about my DD as well. She just turned 6 and bmom has several dx's one of which is Bipolar and another is OCD. My DD is really a great kid, but I see some traits that put up some red flags to me. She is very controlling and bossy and NEEDS to be in charge all the time. She will get something in her head that she wants to do and she can't let it go. (we were leaving the house the other night and she kept turning off the light before everyone had their shoes on. I told her to stop and she said that she wanted to turn it off and then stood there with her hand on it waiting for everyone to get out the door. I told her that I would turn it off bcuz I would be the last one out. She turned it off anyway and then I flipped it back on to find the diaper bag and she came back in the door and put her hand on the light again! I had to pull her hand off the light and walk her out to the car. She was visibly upset.) We have these kinds of confrontations all the time. She also has times when she is overly emotional about minor things. I don't know if all this is just her personality or what but I feel confident that we can handle whatever comes.