We have to super glue his shoes on him while he uses the treadmill!
Yelp, it’s that time of the week again. Another fun-filled day of physical and occupational therapy for Noah. As you can see in today’s video his physical therapist is using treadmill training to help him learn to walk. Noah’s actually been doing it for a few months now, and it’s been neat to watch his little feet take more and more steps with each visit.
If you’ve been following our story than you’ve probably noticed that we post a lot of videos from Noah’s various therapy appointments; that’s because we bring him to therapy 2 -3 times a week…so therapy has become a big part of our life. In fact, as often as we visit I feel like we should have our own parking space by now. 🙂
When we first started taking Noah to therapy I wondered how long it would be before all of these trips became a huge hassle. He has to be here several times a week, and it isn’t like we have buckets of spare time just sitting around our house. The actual therapy sessions are the easy part (for us at least.) It’s the getting ready, driving across town, fighting traffic, scheduling our day around his appointments, and trying to remember to put shoes on his feet (this little boy does not like shoes) as we hurry out the door that’s difficult.
We have to super glue his shoes on him while he uses the treadmill!
But you know what, now that we’re a little over a year into this journey, I can honestly say it’s no hassle at all. Sure there are days when we’d much rather stay at home (and days when we actually do stay home! Shhhhhh….don’t tell anyone) and lots of days where we don’t manage to leave our house in time and end up being super late, but at the end of the day I don’t mind one bit. Really I don’t. I’m thankful for the investment these occupational and physical therapists are making in our son. I’m thankful to live in an area with so many resources at our fingertips. And I’m thankful that day by day, step by step Noah is growing and developing. It’s amazing to see this little boy grow up….he makes me drunk with pride! 🙂
How many times a week is your child in therapy? What’s one thing you (at frist) thought would be a hassle that now you count as a blessing?
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wow! therapy is sure a lot more advanced than it was when Mika was Noah's age :) Looks like he is having a lot of fun too. My favorite (or one of) therapies with Mika was suing beach towels under each leg to teach her to crawl...we used to laugh so hard it's a wonder we ever got any "work" done :)
Yah, they do some pretty fun stuff these days. Some of the kids on our facebook page do horseback riding therapy, water therapy, and a ton more. It's pretty neat. How old is Mika now? And that crawling exercise sounds fun! I don't think I know what it is...tell me more! :)
oops...that would be "using" and not "suing" (poor beach towels) haha!
It's all good...! :)
Normally I agree that therapy (between our two there is 16 hours a week) is no big deal. BUT in January we had 4 week days that didn't have something on it and many days that had double our normal stuff. February is just as bad with some days tripled. So right now we are all a little beat and cranky. After all the specialists are done and we reach a more normal run, it'll be better.
Wow! Three times a week! We're in a small South Australian town. Felix has speech and physio once every couple of months. He used to have Occupational Therapy every couple of months too, but there is no OT in town now and we are about to lose the physio as well. Lucky I guess that we are experienced parents (7 other kids), so we do a lot of activities with him using our own initiative, and the DS Society send us copies of the activities they are doing with the other babies Felix's age which is helpful. We don't even have a paediatrician in our town!!! We are very thankful that Felix has been ridiculously healthy and is progressing so well, although we will most likely move back to the city when he gets older so that he can participate more in activities with other kids with DS as well as other mainstream activities :)
My son, Anthony, has speech therapy, p/t, and his teacher..they all come to my house! no hassles there but for a long time, we use to drive about 40 minutes away for his playgroup and p/t- that was a hassle but everyone we've worked with has been wonderful- he has progressed in so many ways!
Playgroups are fun! We used speech therapy when Noah was little for some of his feeding issues, and we're about to get ramped back up on that. How old is your son now? And what sort of things does he do during his pt and st?
anthony is 2 1/2 yrs old...pt is mostly working on balance and climbing and bouncing with him-he is not much of a bouncer... speech they work on more receptive than actual talking,but i am hoping to get him morespeech therapy for him...Noah is adorable and i love your website!!
Our Michael is three months old and has OT once a week and PT once a month. He is doing super! My husband and I are both PT's so we work on a lot at home and it makes a difference. We try not to make it too much of a boot camp for little Michael! :) I love working with the pediatric therapists and I can truly say as a member of the profession and then on the patient end as well, that therapists truly love what We do and are genuinely interested and invested in our patients and feel priviledged to be given an opportunity to help improve the quality of life for those We treat. :) I love watching Noah shine in PT!
Thanks so much for the kind words. And wow...! and mom and dad who are PT's??? What a lucky little boy! Are you guys his therapists, or do you have separate pediatric therapists? Where are you guys from by the way?
NoahsDad.com We are in San Diego. My husband and I have worked primarily in adult orthopedics although I have done a specialty in aquatic therapy for both adults and pediatrics. I am anxious to get Michael into the adapted infant swim program at the hospital I work at. We have had all of our care so far at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. They performed his surgery and we spent three weeks in the NICU and have gone back post discharge for cardiology, HENT, PT and OT. They also have a Down Syndrome clinic which provides multi-disciplinary evaluations all under one roof to help facilitate referrals for whatever services may be needed. We are very fortunate to live near this hospital. Michael is doing so well and is just a delight (: He is holding his head up and giggling now and we love celebrating every little accomplishment he makes (:
Great post! We live in a rural area, services are not ample but they are good at teaching us what to do. I did not go back to work after James was born so I could give him everything I could. We get speech once a month (although she pretty much just listens to him now) We just barely got PT/OT bumped up to 2X a month. The therapist comes to our house. Our pediatrician is going to also refer us to our local hospital once a month for PT there. It is not a hassle, because we have had the luxury of staying home for all of the visits. I have wanted more but they keep saying he is doing great.
Great post! We live in a rural area, services are not ample but they are good at teaching us what to do. I did not go back to work after James was born so I could give him everything I could. We get speech once a month (although she pretty much just listens to him now) We just barely got PT/OT bumped up to 2X a month. The therapist comes to our house. Our pediatrician is going to also refer us to our local hospital once a month for PT there. It is not a hassle, because we have had the luxury of staying home for all of the visits. I have wanted more but they keep saying he is doing great.
My daughter, Kara-16 months, has OT and PT therapy once a week. Speech therapy just started this week. I would like to have it more often, but am grateful for all they do for us. I wouldn't have any idea of what to do otherwise. One of the great things, is that they come to our house...I don't have to go anywhere. They will come until she is three years old. Another great benefit is that since it's in our home, my other children participate. They take turns being present during therapy, and what a great advantage for all the kids to know what their sister is doing in therapy, because then they do it with her when they are playing with her. So even if I don't have time, someone else is always working with her. Nothing's cuter than when I hear my 4 and 6 year old daughter's say "Let's play therapy girls!", or when my 17 year old son has Kara hold onto the back/bottom of his shorts and he "walks" her around the house. Love it.
My daughter, Kara-16 months, has OT and PT therapy once a week. Speech therapy just started this week. I would like to have it more often, but am grateful for all they do for us. I wouldn't have any idea of what to do otherwise. One of the great things, is that they come to our house...I don't have to go anywhere. They will come until she is three years old. Another great benefit is that since it's in our home, my other children participate. They take turns being present during therapy, and what a great advantage for all the kids to know what their sister is doing in therapy, because then they do it with her when they are playing with her. So even if I don't have time, someone else is always working with her. Nothing's cuter than when I hear my 4 and 6 year old daughter's say "Let's play therapy girls!", or when my 17 year old son has Kara hold onto the back/bottom of his shorts and he "walks" her around the house. Love it.