Recently we just began Intensive Behavorial Integration therapy (30 hrs/wk), for our 2 1/2 year old, on top of weekly PT, speech, playgroup, and OT. It has been difficult for me as the mom, to have someone here (the therapist) around all of the time. I really like our IBI therapist, we really click--but now I am feeling so overwhelmed. I was wondering what others have done and how they have dealt with juggling everything. I feel like it is too much-especially with 3 other children--2 NT, and 1 PDD-NOS. Maybe it just takes some getting used to. Then, last night, we took our NT son in to the hospital and found out he has pneumonia. How does one survive? I've been taking things a day at a time, but boy, maybe I should knock it down to an hour or minute...Any advice is very welcomed!!!

i, too, feel overwhelmed lately with the amount of therapy my son receives. he has 4 plus hours a day of ABA, 3 hours a day of school, OT (2X a week) and ST (3x a week). it's really just the ABA that i am starting to feel like "enough is enough". he is well into his 2nd year and i am starting to feel as if he's not getting anything out of it anymore. i am so grateful to have gotten the therapy for him but i think it's time to sit down with his ABA team and discuss the reality that he's probably done with the program. the other part of me says "are you nuts!" this is school funded just ride it as long as you can....but my son cries 9 out of 10 times now that his therapist's show up. he wakes up in the morning asking me if he has "therapy AGAIN today, mommy." i have a feeling the end is near anyway, i have his transitional meeting from pre-k to "school age" in July and from what i understand getting ABA at that stage is almost impossible.

my opinion for you would be to stick with it, at 2.5 years old your son would definately benefit from the therapy. my son also started at about 2.5 and made huge gains with the therapy.

our son is almost 5 and has a 30 hour plus a week schedule and we are looking at -adding more time to that this summer... it is very hard. it takes alot of juggling and organizational skills that i wish i had more of:) but if the IBI works anything like the ABA my son recieves then yes he should stay in it. isaac is very severe and will always be by the looks of things but he has gotten to the point where we can give him one or two step instruction and he will follow them... as long as he isnt having a normal defiant moment that any kid his age would:D but as far as taking care of younger ones i find the only real time i have to bond and take care of my newborn is during those 6 hours isaac works with his ABA instructor. i think you should keep that going just get yourself a break if you dont have to be involved with the treatment. and cancel the rest of his therapy for the week that is outside of the house until the pnenomia gets a bit better, i am sure they would understand. where isaac receives his outside of the house therapy has been great about that sort of thing if i havent been able to arrange someone else to take isaac to therapy for me (my sister has a daughter that receives services at the same place so we can carpool as needed)

and once things settle down a bit... the best thing we do here is wrangle a babysitter once and a while! doesnt happen often and generally we spend the whole time talking about the kids but it doesnt a parent good to play hooky once in a while.

The therapy is really overwhelming. My son has about 10 hours a week right now. He will be increasing to 20 hours a week in June, and by September we will increase to 30 hours a week.

Here is a suggestion, that we too, are going to try:

-Think up some different things to do with the therapist. My son has both ABA and Floortime. His Floortime therapist will be coming for 6 hours a week, and she has agreed to having his therapy at my moms house this summer. My mother has a swimming pool, fenced in play area for the kids, swing-set, huge sandbox, and a playroom. The therapist said she could even get in the pool with my son (as long as I was there too), and do therapy right in the swimming pool.

I'm not sure how flexible your therapy schedule is, but the therapist around here will even go places with us. Next week, we are going to get my son's haircut during his therapy session. She is going to try and help him through it (as he hates it). She also said that she is going to take pictures so we can make a social story for him to prepare him for the next time he gets his hair cut.

I think it is definately overwhelming to have therapists in our house all of the time. First of all, I feel like my house always has to be spotless for them. Just the pressure of that is enough to drive us insane. But also, I miss my privacy. Not that you get tons of privacy when you have 4 kids, but I still miss it. Good luck to you, and keep us posted.

-Steph

It's very intrusive to have all that therapy in the house all of the time, but the bottom line is it does help your child. Believe me when I say ; eventually you get used to it. We had 18 hours in the house when my son was in early intervention. The time flew and then the services ended when he turned three. Now we have 4 hours provided by the school district which isn't nearly enough. We also pay for private therapy but unfortunately can't afford the level of services that would benefit him the most. We are in battle with the school district to get them to step it up.

Scross; Oh how I can relate to the house cleaning. I found myself so exhaused because you can't do the cleaning while the therapy and the kids are happening so at 11pm you find yourself cleaning so the house is ready for the 8am therapy session.
I finally hired a cleaner for the every other week thing to assist with the things I could never get to just to keep me sane during this period.

It's alot to deal with while it's going on, but for my son it made a world of difference so it was worth the intrusion and while at the time it seemed like forever, it was really just a brief moment in our lives.

Hang in there, you'll be glad you did

Yikes! We are going to be starting 30 hours of intensive Floortime/ABA next week for our twin 3.5 yr. old boys. I am also worried about the lack of privacy and cleaning. Hopefully some of the time both of the twins will have therapy at the same time. I can't imagine how hard it is going to be, but am very hopeful that we will see some improvements. We will be having therapy every day except Sundays. I wanted at least one day a week that we could do something together as a family. My head is spinning just trying to get everything ready to start the therapy :dizzy:

Thank you to all for the great advice. I guess I didn't realize how much I really value my privacy and alone time. Not that I have very much with 4 kids, but I can sneak off once in a while and just "re-group" mentally. I suppose I just need to get used to having a therapist here all of the time-and not worry about the house being cleaned, etc. Easier said than done--- that's for sure! I feel like I have to be in sight all of the time so that the therapist doesn't feel like a baby-sitter. Maybe that's weird. Also, maybe it's that way because of these first few weeks of observation that the therapist is doing. Change has always been hard...but what amazes me is how quickly the human body can "adapt". Here's to adapting!

Thanks guys!!

Does anyone have time to do their hair and make-up? I can usually get the make-up done, but spending extra time on hair just to straighten it--is almost impossible! Maybe I need a different cut. I know, this is nuts...but I feel like I need to be somewhat presentable by 8am for therapy...

Hi.... Hair and makeup are just one of the many sacrifices I made with the adjustment of having someone in the house by 8am. To be up, showered, dressed, kids fed and dressed and backpacks ready by 8am was a huge accomplishment for me. I never had time to fuss about what I looked like. I agree with you that if you can find the time to primp, you should take it. I got into a rut and I still haven't recovered. My husband is not any help with this stuff so he has had to sacrifice too because I don't primp at all anymore.

Haha

Good Luck with it all

Wow, how do you get any therapy? My son get's 30 minutes a week of speech and maybe an hour of OT. I'm wishing we got more. I'm sick of the school system. And to be honest....I did better when I had therapist at home. I played more. But I never had that many hours. Maybe 2 total hours a week. So I would be tired of it too.

Oh my! I am freaking out a little bit here. I can't believe all the hours of therapy your children have. Is this common? Do all of your children have Aspergers? How does two working parents do this?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but my son was diagnosed with Autism when he turned four. He's on the very mild end of the spectrum, so his psychologist told me that the very best thing for him would be to go to a regular kindergarten a full day when school starts in September. (His year in Preschool helped him tremendously - he even made some friends which was really exciting.) He will have to be pulled out of school 2-3 days per week for speech, occupational and behavioral therapies.

During the summer, I'm teaching him myself. It's not a hard thing to do. You just have to really get into a system and read a lot about what you are doing. I'm doing this each day with him until he starts Kindergarten. It takes about 3-4 hours and he enjoys most of it very much and looks forward to it.

Parents underestimate what they can do. They can play a very large role in their children's advancement in many areas. Here is what my son and I work through each day.

1. Facial expressions (several pictures of people with various expression and we discuss them.)
2. Short story memory test (short story and I test his comprehension and memory.)
3. Story fill-in-the-blanks (I make up a story making him the main character and he contributes to the story.)
4. Story time and reverse reading (I read him a story and when I'm done he basically pretends to read it back to me.)
5. Pattern recreation (I make a pattern with blocks and he copies it with his blocks.)
6. Counting
7. Brain Quest Q & A’s (trivia for pre-k & k)
8. Simple word identification - simple words
9. Follow 5 directions - increasing difficulty each day.
10. Identifying 10 different objects - household objects. we just walk around and find things that he doesn't know the name of.
11. Speech therapy – grammar and sentence structure
12. Learn one life skill - he learns to do something on his own.
13. Empathy lesson
14. Manner lesson
15. Make believe - we play in his kitchen, under a blanket, fort, whatever.
16. Draw requested objects - I'm trying to help him with his dexderity.
17. Simple writing practice - we practice one letter per day.
18. One workbook exercise
19. Learn about one animal - from animal encyclopedia.
20. Occupational Therapy - his OT gave me a list of activities I follow
21. Physical Therapy - same with his PT. I follow a list.
22. Social Stories - HE LOVES THESE. I highly recommend them.
23. Interaction with Cammy (I record his daily interaction with baby sister.)
24. Consonant Sounds and vowels
26. What’s happening in the picture?
27. Handing me a requested number of objects
28. Craft time
29. Music time with sister

There are quite a few more I added, but this is most of them. He really enjoys his summer school and he's already making notable improvements in many areas.

I run a home business, so I have the time to spend with him. I have no idea how a working parent does this. I would just have therapists handle it I guess. I really don't know. I know it must be incredibly hard.

jeepmom,

my son is on the mild end of the spectrum and it is VERY hard to juggle everything. my husband works full time outside the home and i work 2 days in the home and 2 days out. the thing that causes me the most stress is that my youngest child (just turned 2) wants to be involved in her brother's therapy but can't really join in. i am EXHAUSTED keeping her away from the action. then i get the looks from the therapists like "can't you control her!"
sometimes i feel like screaming "it's HER house too!" "involve her somehow or lock the damn door to the playroom." I have certainly had a therapist or two with no common sense.