3-6 Month SATB2 Activities

With Lily being newly diagnosed, I dove right into therapy mode. REMEMBER: therapy isn't a bad word!!! This doesn't mean drilling all the time! Therapy is meant to be FUN and enjoyable for BOTH parent and child! Call it "engaged high-quality play time" if you want.

One of the things that doctors tell new parents is to do tummy time with their baby. It is especially important for special needs children to get in those crucial minutes, not only to strengthen their muscles, but to also prevent a flat head! 

Aim for 20+ minutes of tummy time each day, though it doesn't have to be all at once (and the baby would probably protest if you tried!). I have  even heard some OTs recommend about an hour and a half each day!!!

Here is some of what we do at home to try and let Lily achieve her potential!


Tummy Time! 

In early stages, place baby's chest on a boppy type of pillow so she can look around more easily. 

Place the baby's elbows so she is propped up. This strengthens the shoulders and back, which will be needed for crawling and (much later on) writing!

Place toys around the baby so she can start to reach for them. She will need to stabilize her core in order to lift her arm to grab at the object

While baby is doing tummy time, call to her from different sides, and show fun colorful (or black and white) objects. Turning her head from side to side is a fantastic exercise right now!

If she doesn't want to do tummy time on the floor, try YOU laying down on your back and having baby do tummy time while on your stomach/ chest

Tummy time isn't just laying on their belly on the floor! Carry your baby facing out and at varying angles, so she gets used to looking around at everything around her.

Sitting

Pull out a mirror and place it so your baby can see into it! Mirrors are HIGHLY motivating for babies, and SATB2 kids especially! I would stick Lily in her bumbo seat facing the mirror while I did my makeup in the morning.

Tummy time and time sitting up strengthens head and neck muscles and allows for better coordination. This is the first step toward "big" milestones like crawling and walking! So target this first!

A word of caution: Putting your baby in a carseat/ swing/ bouncer frequently doesn't give the baby much time to practice that head control! So avoid it as much as possible!

We have a rule with Lily that the carseat only stays in the car. No taking it out to tote her around. And sometimes, it was a HUGE hassle! And I only used the swing occasionally to let Lily take a nap in there because she LOVED her swing. But I wouldn't let her stay in it awake.

Other ideas:

As often as was possible, I nursed Lily laying on my side. This made Lily work to stay in her side-lying position, which is GREAT for learning to roll, learning to push up to sitting, coming to and crossing midline... And she started flipping over to her side very early when she would see me getting ready to feed her.

When you work out, your muscles get sore! I don't know if it actually does or not, but I always assumed that my baby's muscles would be sore too. So after baths at night, I massage Lily, just in case she has any soreness. She loves when I love massage and sing to her

Last thing- to work on rolling, I would position Lily so her arm was either up high or under her torso, then get her to look up at me so she would roll over. I didn't count that as rolling, but done frequently, it starts to build muscle memory so they can roll.