Thursday, July 10, 2008

How much therapy is TOO much?

I am struggling with the amount of therapy that Sammy is getting. At first I wanted more, now we have too much, I just was wondering how you ladies have found a balance between everything. I think at first I was like ok this is my number one priority. Now, I am feeling like our day centers around when Sammy has therapy. If I only had him I would feel like it was great. But I have four other kids that deserve my time and attention too. Just such a balancing act!!!! Sammy has therapy five days a week. One day they come here for infant development, and the other four days we go to the hospital for his therapy. I think in the fall I am going to do every other week with infant development and one day a week at the hospital, but he is doing so well as of late, I wonder if that is because of all this extra therapy!!! It is just so hard!

5 comments:

* ~ *Jessica* ~ * said...

I guess for me- I would say the amount is GREAT! Logen spends over 15 hours a week in therapy during the school year (over 3 hours per day/5 days a week) in therapy and in the summer, it's 14 hours per week. To me, we balance fine. However- I don't stay at the clinic the entire time. There's no way I could. I use it as my time to get Parker from school, grocery shop, run errands, etc. And, Logen LOVES it. We do "call in sick" from time to time to take a break- which is good for us all. I pick a session to stay at each week to watch. Normally, Logen does WORSE when I stay. He doesn't cooperate with Mom there and we end up having to threaten me leaving to get him to straighten up, which usually ends up in me going to the business office and chatting with whoever is in there.

--- will continue this later :)

Amy said...

Wow, that is tough! I am like Jessica--the more the better--until it starts stressing the whole family. Then I guess that is another deal. The thing I know for sure is that kids have to have more than one hour per week to really improve. I have opted to work a lot with Emma at home. I would say that if you total what the a PT does with what I do, Emma gets about 15 hours a week too. The thing is that I do about 14.5 of that myself. Of course, I don't have any other children to think about, let alone four!! Wow, I don't even know how you would have the time to do it at home like that. Sammy is not as severe as Emma is either though, so that makes a difference. I do think the therapy could be making the difference. Maybe you could make a pact with yourself to do it until he reaches a certain goal, and then ease back. Or, you could go ahead and ease back to maybe 2-3 days per week, and just see how he does and how your other kiddos do. If he keeps improving that may be a good balance. I hate to sound like one of those moms that is therapy crazy, but I have seen the value of hard work for my child. Again, she is severe--just now getting to a walker at age 4. I feel like I have to give her a chance. And, now the work is paying off. Just my 2 cents. Oh, another idea is to do it sporadically, like say go 1-2 week, and then say do 3 weeks intensive where you go every day, say every 3 months or so!! Just a thought.

Tara said...

This is tough. I know I wanted tons of therapy for Mia and even though she is my only one it is overwhelming. I cannot imagine trying to balance all of the therapy and 4 other children. I do believe in therapy and that has probably helped him do as well as he is. It is so hard to go to the therapies everyday and then find the time to do additional therapy at home. I think it is a good idea to continue doing all of the therapy now and give it X amount of time and see where he is at. I think if you cut back his therapy now you will regret it later. He is so young still and the more on target you can keep him the better he will be in the future. Are all of his therapies (besides infant stem) at the hospital? Is it possible to have any come to the home? I take Mia to 4 of her therapies and 3 of them come to the home, which is nice, especially on the day(s) that she has 2 therapy sessions.

* ~ *Jessica* ~ * said...

I agree with the others, you are going to have to find what works for you & Sammy. We don't have the option of having the therapists come to our home b/c Logen isn't severe enough and we use private services. If we used the state services, they could come to our home. We've steadily increased therapy since Logen was 9 months old (and he's almost 5). I know when he starts Kindergarten, we will decrease, so I push for the max now. Amy had a good idea- however, I know at out clinic thats not an option. Their schedule doesn't allow for changes that often. They also have policies regarding cancelation, etc. I only have 1 other child to worry about whereas you have 4. I make our intensive therapy schedule work for us, b/c it's something I feel very strongly about. Our clinic is also less than a mile from our house. Parker loves being there and they both throw HUGE fits when it's time to leave. I do a ton of voluteer work for them (I've designed their tee-shirts, I'm working on their brochures, and will be designing their website) so we spend a crap load of time there anyway. I joke with them and tell them they just need to put in an extra bed room for us since it's like our 2nd home. I'm way off track now :P

You will figure it out, I promise!!! Sammy will be just fine with whatever you decide. Being a Momma with a child who needs all this 'extra' stuff is hard sometimes! Hugs girl! :)

Popcorn House said...

I blogged about what we decided. I talked to our PT yesterday, and we are going down to two sessions a week and hopefully on the same day. That isn't to say I won't be working with him at home everyday, I just really want him to get the experiences of being a "regular" kid. It is important to me and I feel like because he is so mild he can still have that, which I am grateful for. I know that he gets as much being at home as he does going there. It is more that I need them to show me things so I can do incorporate those into our playtime. Thanks so much for the input. I really love all the support that we have!!!

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