Is my toddler sensory seeking, or is this normal?

Almost certainly normal. Crashing into the couch, spinning, chewing sleeves and squeezing into tight spaces are ordinary toddler behaviour. What matters is whether it stops them doing the things they want to do.

No toy diagnoses a child and no toy treats one.

What a sensory seeker looks like at two

Picture 5pm. The couch cushions are on the floor because someone pulled them there, and the same someone is running from the hallway to land on them, face first, for the ninth time. Then the spinning. Then hanging upside down off the armchair to see the room the wrong way up.

A two-year-old has a body that only recently learned to walk and is finding out what it can do. Hard landings, tight squeezes, things in the mouth well past the age you expected that to end. None of this is a sign of anything on its own.

The question I would ask is a boring one. When the cushions go back on the couch, does the child move on? A child who can be steered to the next thing is fine. A child who cannot, day after day, is the one to watch. Even then, watch is the right word rather than worry.

The other child, who will not touch it

This one gets far less written about. The child who backs away from the sandbox. Who cries when paint gets on a finger and holds the hand out to be wiped before anything else can happen. Who takes socks off because of the seam.

This is normal too. In our experience most two-year-olds who dislike wet, sticky or gritty things on their skin grow out of it without anyone doing anything. The child is allowed to not like sand.

The version that actually sends parents searching is food. A child who eats crackers and dry cereal, refuses anything wet or lumpy, and gags when a spoonful gets near. We are a toy shop and we give no feeding advice, full stop.

Some texture fussiness at the table is ordinary at this age. A list of foods that keeps shrinking, or a child who is not growing along their curve, is a pediatrician question. There is a recognized feeding disorder in that territory, ARFID, and only a clinician can rule it in or out.

The line that matters

For either child, the same short test. It asks what the behavior is getting in the way of.

• Can they stop? Asked once, given a minute, does the spinning end? Does the hand eventually go back near the paint?
• Sleep. A child who cannot settle without being squeezed, rocked or bounced for an hour, every night, has a sleep problem worth raising, whatever the label.
• Meals. Fussy is ordinary. A shrinking list of foods is a call to make.
• Getting dressed. Ten minutes of protest about socks is a Tuesday. A child who cannot wear any shoes at all, or any collar, is different.
• Daycare. If the people who see a room full of two-year-olds every week are the ones raising it, take that seriously. They have a comparison you do not.
• Safety. Climbing is normal. Climbing that a fall does not stop is the kind that ends up in urgent care.

If none of those are true, what you have is a two-year-old. If two or three are, you have a question, and the person to ask is at the end of this post.

What pediatricians have said about a sensory disorder

Most advice on this sits inside a frame: your child has a sensory processing disorder, of the seeking or the avoiding kind, and here is the therapy and equipment for it. Pediatricians have not signed up to that frame.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' last formal statement on this was published in 2012, in Pediatrics. It says, in these words: "Because there is no universally accepted framework for diagnosis, sensory processing disorder generally should not be diagnosed." It also described the research on sensory integration therapy as limited and inconclusive.

The same paper has a second half. It says that occupational therapy using sensory-based approaches "may be acceptable as one of the components of a comprehensive treatment plan." No stand-alone diagnosis, then, but no ruling the therapy out as part of something wider.

It is fourteen years old, and we could not confirm whether the Academy has reaffirmed it, so treat it as the last thing they said rather than the current word. And it was written about children with developmental and behavioral diagnoses, a different group from a two-year-old jumping off a couch.

The autism question, which you may already be asking

Type "sensory seeking toddler" into a search box and autism turns up in the suggestions within a word or two. So it belongs here.

The same AAP statement helps. It lists difficulty with sensory information as something seen in several conditions: autism spectrum disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, developmental coordination disorder and childhood anxiety disorders. It says those "must always be considered", and calls for "a thorough evaluation".

Sensory seeking on its own is not a diagnosis, and a toy shop's blog cannot tell you whether your child is autistic. What the statement does say is that the right response to a worry is an evaluation of the whole child, and a sensory label is a poor substitute for one.

What to do at home, without a diagnosis

For the ordinary child, which is most of them, a few things cost nothing and make the days easier. None of them treat anything.

• Give the crashing somewhere to land. Cushions on the floor in one corner, and that corner is where the running ends. You cannot stop the landings, only choose the surface.
• A job for the whole body. Carrying the laundry basket, hauling the bag with the potatoes in it. I am not claiming it calms anyone. It gives the energy a point.
• Dry before wet. For the child who will not touch, start with rice or dried pasta in a tray. Sand next. Water and paint much later, and only when they lead.
• Tools before hands. A scoop, a spoon, a paintbrush. The hand can be an inch from the texture and still in charge of it.
• One new texture at a time. A tray of five things is a tray they will not go near. One thing, left out for a week, gets touched by Thursday.
• Never hold a hand into anything. Not in play, not at the table. It teaches the child that the texture comes with being overpowered, which is the opposite of the lesson.

A calm, uncrowded room does a lot of this by itself: most of the shelf put away, one thing out, you nearby with your own job. That is what the post on independent play is about. Where to start rearranges the room, and how many toys a toddler should have covers the count.

Who to call, and what it costs

If two or three lines on the list above are true, or daycare has raised it, make a call. There are two, and it matters which is free.

For a child under three in the United States, your state's early intervention program must evaluate your child at no cost to you. That is federal law, Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and you do not need a referral to ask. Search your state's name with "early intervention" for the number.

The other call is your pediatrician. That one is a normal appointment, and it costs what your appointments cost. Either is a better use of an evening than the forums.

We sell toys, none appear here, and none would help with this question. A two-year-old who crashes into the couch is a two-year-old. The signal is whether they can stop and what it gets in the way of, and you can see both for yourself at 5pm tomorrow.