Occupational Therapy

We had our first official OT appointment today at Mapleton. Jac's therapist was happy with his progress in terms of holding his head up and thinking about rolling.

She gave us the following homework (we will now have an OT appointment every other week).

1. Roll over on the ball: This means that we help Jac roll over while we hold him on the exercise ball. This is quite a feat and not for the faint of heart. Jac and I did it together under his OT's watchful eye and we managed it - but it is definitely a lot harder than last week's assignment of going back and forth on the ball for tummy time!

2. On back on the ball: This means that we are supposed to put Jac on his back on the ball and move him around in this position. We are then suppose to bounce his bottom into our bodies a few times - so that he sort of runs into us. We are also supposed to move him around in all directions and move him while his hands are held to his knees. (We also do the hands held to the knees position on his back on the bed, rolling from side to side).

3. Fly through the air: We are supposed to hold Jac in a sitting position, and then move him to a flying position, dive him down to a supporting surface that he can touch and do a little weight bearing with his arms, and then rotate him back up into a sitting position. This is to help him develop his balance systems, get used to bearing weight on his arms (as a prelude to crawling), and get used to rotating into a sitting position as a prelude to sitting up on his own.

4. Help him pace his eating better: Jac has a tendency when he is wide awake to not pace his eating. This means that he he does not pause while he is sucking to take a little break and get some extra breaths. What he does is suck too much, run out of breath, and then pull off the bottle, rather than pausing sooner and keeping the bottle in his mouth while he takes a few breaths (he does this more when he is tired). His OT told us to help him pace his eating when he is not by taking the bottle out of his mouth at intervals and then giving it right back to him as soon as he opens his mouth again.

5. Use distractions for fedding during the day if necessary: Jac cries at his bottle sometimes. He is hungry, you show him the bottle and he starts crying. As you can imagine this is very distressing for all involved. We believe that is is because of the reflux that he does this. He has learned to associate pain with eating, and so when he is awake, and thinks about it, he cries because of the pain that eating can cause. This is very sad and really breas my heart. His OT suggested than when he does this we try to distract him with something to help him move past it. Right now we sing to him, or make kissy sounds, or anything to distract him. Her suggestion was some sort of toy with bright lights, which she used to distract him while we were there today.

6. Keep arms forward: Jac has a tendency to hold his arms out to his sides, rather than holding them out in front of him. His OT says that this is because of his reflux (a tendency to arch backward and hence hold his arms out to the side and back) and because of his low muscle tone from being a preemie. She wants us to encourage and move his arms into a forward position whenever we can. For example, when he is being held on our shoulder, he has a tendency to keep his arms down to his sides, so she wants us to bring them up to rest on our shoulder. This should help him learn to do a little more weight bearing on his arms and get used to having them in front which he will need to crawl.

7. Do leg massage on the outside of his shin bones: Jac's OT says that in Chinese medicine this area of the body is associated with the stomach and intestines and massaging this area will help his digestion and intestinal health.

So - lots to do! We have all of these things plus the others from the previous session. If you click on the OT label at the bottom of this post you will be taken a page with all of the posts that have that label - if you would like to see them all in one place (you can do this with any label).