Hi- just thought I'd see if any other parents of toddlers or former toddlers had any wonderful ideas for getting kids through treatments. Our percussion treatments especially are a night mare- day fater day after day! I keep thinking that one of these times she'll just stop fighting us and realize that we just do this and get it done, but it is a battle which ends up in tears every time, we currently do her nighttime routine after she has fallen asleep. Any help?? Thanks! Our daughter is just turning 2 by the way.
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CPT with toddlers
- Thread starter anonymous
- Start date
HImy son is 17 months and the only way to do his treatment is while he is watching Videos ( baby einstein). The secret is that the only time he is allowed to watch tv/video ( we don't have normal"tv") is when he is doing treatment...when he sees me geting the neb cups prepared he runs to the room where the compressor is, chose a video and wait me to start.lately we are having problem with cpt coz the ned treatment is so long ( pulmozime, pulmicort, tobi) that he is not so patience to the cpt... we are thinking about doing it 3X a day insteady of 2. A reward system can work too if she is able to understand it. Do it like a game, like u are having fun. this way she will see treatment time like fun time.good luckvalmum to torin 17 months w/ cf and can say duck and otter.
My daughter is almost 4 now and I hate to tell you but sometimes it is still a problem to get her to co-operate. I always keep in mind that I don't always feel like doing it either. I know it is tough but try and be patient.My first suggestion is to give them some advance notice and not spring it on her suddenly. Let her know a few minutes ahead of time so she is ready. I usually tell my daughter something like as soon as you finish coloring that picture it is time for therapy. Also try and do it at the same time each day because kids love routine. We always wake up, watch 1 program, do therapy and then go for breakfast, and she has a nighttime routine as well. She also holds something for comfort (security blanket). If she is really giving me a hard time I tell her that we will have to turn the TV off or watch one of my shows - works everytime <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif" border="0">)You may also want to try reading some books to her which explain it in her terms. We found this very helpful. There are a few which we got from our CF clinic. 'CF and Me' is probably the most age appropriate and Mallory's 65 roses is a wonderful book. I read her CF and Me at 2 and Mallory's 65 Roses at age 3. There is not of material available but use what little resources you have.The only other suggestion we got from the hospital was to let her do therapy on her dolly (we bought a large soft doll that was about her size). We use it to prepare for clinic visits and get her comfortable with therapy. They said whatever she does to her doll is usually the part that she is anxious about so that is what we work on.Sorry if this is a lot of suggestions but we tried them all. I don't know if she does better now because she is growing up or if some of these tricks work but they are worth a try.Good luck!
My children are older now but I remember those days well. We also saved all TV and video time for treatments, to make it special but it remained a struggle and we took advantage of the times she slept to do CPT. She still enjoys doing it to us first(she's four) and we pretend she's teaching us how to do it "right" and then when it's her turn she feels more in control since she "instructed" us first. When she was three she loved to watch a video of another little girl having CPT that we got from our clinic, it was only a few minutes and we would have to rewind it constantly but she would be still while she watched it! Someone once told us to try a bean bag chair to get her at all the right angles but still keep her relatively comfortable. We have yet to try that but it sounds like a good idea!
I like the idea of the bean bag chair. Our daughter will also be 4 soon and wants one for her birthday. Now I'll definitely put it on her list! We had someone make a therapy board which she really likes too. Our therapist gave us the dimensions of the board, because they are expensive to buy, and it works great. We covered it in kid friendly material and she loves it. As she grows we will change the covering to whatever she likes at the time.