At each visit, I ask the therapist to tell me the two top things that I should be doing with my boy and I make sure that I do those two top things every day at least once a day. I keep a running list on the refrigerator so that the whole family knows what we are working on. It ends up being 6+ things a day and is time consuming but it is something that we all tackle. My boy has big sisters who also work on things with him. In fact, you can specifically ask the therapists for ideas of things that the big sister can do with him. I think that siblings can be great motivators and quite patient and be a great resources in working with our kids.
Ask the occupational therapist for things that you can do in your day to day interactions that will help strengthen your child and compensate for his weaknesses.
Last year for Christmas we purchased a 9 foot by 9 foot inflatable moonwalk at Sam's Club. I think it was $150. It was certainly under $200. We bought it for our two girls two jump around in and get the winter wigglies out. I did a cursory google search for a link to one so that you would know for sure what I am talking about, but couldn't find one easily. I will keep an eye out, though.
The OT and PT are incredibly impressed with my boy (6 months) in the moonwalk. In fact after seeing the difference it made with him, both of them stated that they were going to look to get one to put in their "headquarters." It turns out to be amazing for his therapy. In this, he can get onto his hands and knees. Just to put this in perspective, this is a 9 month milestone. It really activates his body and it is great to see him sitting and compensating for all of the movement while the girls bounce in it. Plus, it is so soft, he can fall over and have the experience of falling and catching himself and rolling around where it is really fun. His tone is remarkably high when he comes out of the thing. It is tremendous for activating his little body. I think of it as sort of the cheap version of hippotherapy!
We had kept it in the basement, but now we will be pushing aside all of our living room furniture and moving it upstairs so that we can put him in it often.
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