So stressed about SID

[Lovedtodeath]

I am reading books on the topic and now I can't sleep. :( How on earth to implement a sensory diet? How to know what to even do? How does it even help. It doesn't make sense. You all are going to tell me to call in a professional and DH is going to say NO WAY. UGH :willy_nilly:

[OFIH]

If a professional is really not an option, you can do it. I do it daily with my boys. I wouldn't start big. Start very small. Look at what causes the biggest issue. My son's first major issue was his running for hours on end at a stim. He would hit into things so hard that he nearly popped a window out of it's frame. We first put up safety things, then we started working on the stim. The running and slamming into things were doing the same thing for him, deep impact. OK, now we work on that. We looked into the sensory exercises to do for deep impact. We did these at regular intervals (don't wait until they stim to do it) to prevent his need. Then, if he had an especially stimmy day and did it even though we were doing the sensory stuff, we stopped him and did the exercises. It's like a person with asthma taking a daily preventative, but when they have an attack on top of that, they use a rescue inhaler. KWIM?

 

Then, once we had those exercises down pat, we moved to the next thing, then the next. You can't just start a full program all at once when doing it on your own. Even professional sensory certified OT's don't start everything the first day you walk in for therapy. They start with the big things first and add on as they go.

 

One point you might want to make to your husband, if he's open to conversation, is that if your son had a broken leg he would let a professional take care of it. Well, your son has a broken body (this is a legitimate DX), and there are sensory-certified OT's that can help him take care of it. We had private OT, PT and such for our sons but brought them home for very specific reasons that have done nothing but help them develop faster than they were before. But it wasn't easy, isn't easy, and I am not sure I would have succeeded without at least a little professional help stepping in to give me a jump start on what to do.

[MelanieM]

Carmen, are you trying to figure out what foods to eliminate? I would try muscle testing as a guidance tool for what to include/exclude. It's easy to do, you don't have to think about it, and it's free.

[Mom22ns]

Ok, you are really asking me to think back here. When ds was little we had major SID issues. They are all gone now, so this is way out of my normal routine.

 

A sensory diet is just like your nutritional diet. You need food from all the food groups. People need sensory input for all the sensory systems. We need it all to balance. Balance is key for our bodies. So, if your child freaks out when there are loud noises for example, then they are probably out of balance. What do you do? Figure out what is missing!

 

Proprioceptive input will be deep muscle. Does your child jump off high things, run into things and people, squish and try to be squished? Then they are seeking proprioceptive input. Add to their daily diet, a weighted blanket or just wrap them in something and snuggle. Have them jump! We got a jump-o-lene for this, it is an indoor blow up trampoline. We'd fill it with pillows and the kids would bounce roll around - oh the proprioceptive input!:lol:

 

Vestibular input will be spinning, swinging. Can your child spin forever without getting dizzy? Then wind them up on the swing and spin them everyday! We got a platform swing and put it in the basement. Ds would swing for 20 min (not jut back and forth, but almost always circling and sometimes spinning) every day. Any time he got too upset or frustrated at ps they would allow him to go swing. You could tell when he needed it because his ears would get red. Once he'd swing, he could focus and function again.

 

Those are the ones I know best, because those are the areas my ds was seeking sensory in. We tried brushing, but never saw any benefit. He was pretty neutral to touch although he had some over-sensitiveness to certain textures.

 

Most of us maintain a sensory balance naturally. For kids with SID, you have to help them. You put them on a "sensory diet" so that you increase their intake in the areas that they need it and help them reach a balance. Does it help? YES! They will be calmer, more able to focus and their brain will be able to focus on other things besides the sensory - like learning! It is so worth it. I had a great OT that taught me about sensory, but you can do it. Have you read The Out of Sync Child yet? Read it and find what your child needs and start giving it to them - daily, maybe even hourly. Once you find a balance, they will come to a point of knowing what they need and when and it gets easier.

[LizzyBee]

I just skimmed the earlier posts, but a few additional things I didn't see mentioned are hopscotch, jump rope, wall push-ups, juggling, crawling through a tunnel, and bouncing a smallish ball under the legs (alternate which leg) from one hand to the other so that it crosses the midline.

[Guest]

You can go a very long way with Raising a Sensory Smart Child and The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun. Mix up different activities over the course of the week.

 

I hope OhElizabeth chimes in here, as she has been doing a program at home for her daughter in the past couple of months. If she doesn't show up, you could PM her and ask; I know she researched it with her usual thoroughness and was doing some great things.

[Lovedtodeath]

Muscle testing check... yeast is the only food to avoid. DD and I also have SID and she hasn't been tested in a long time.

 

I have the books. I am just having trouble implementing. I understand the activities, I just don't understand when to schedule them and which ones to do. I have to go now, but I will be back to tell ya'll what I feel needs remedying.

 

Thank you!

[PrincessAriel]

If you google "sensory diet examples" you can take a look at what this looks like for different children with different needs. Keep in mind all are different. You have to look at the behavior and plan an activity to best help the child cope with or alleviate the problem behavior or sensory need. My dd has a sensory diet but now that we are not doing school in the summer I need to modify it a bit. If I have time later I can try to list some of it here. She has been in OT for quite a while and her therapist is trying to help redesign it before she takes a therapy break at the end of the summer. You can also find examples online which list different activities for different areas of SID. I will try to find the one I found which I thought was most helpful.

[Lovedtodeath]

Melanie, I am so glad you responded as I am more familiar with alternative methods. Are you familiar with Resonance Repatterning or Electrodermal Testing? What about muscle checking for what types of therapy are needed?

[Lovedtodeath]

Okay, so Jake's biggest problem is hitting. He starts attacking us whenever we are trying to do school. He seems to enjoy getting chased and spanked, so he likes to provoke us. He also talks very little, screams a lot and tends to not eat much with a huge preference for tortilla sandwiches (if he won't eat anything else all day this is what I give him). He obviously craves swinging. Begs for it all of the time and will want to stay in it until he falls asleep.

 

DD avoids showers and won't wear very many things. Getting dressed to go somewhere results in mega fits. Half of what I have bought her is too itchy, too tight or uncomfortable, including every type of clothing or underwear or shoes.

 

DD and I both get overwhelmed and have anxiety attacks due to too many things coming at once (concert, movie, lots of kids screaming) I am worse than her at this it seems and will hide in a hole when all of the kids are here (see my avatar). DD and I both are pretty sluggish and have attention issues. My biggest problem seems to be sudden noises including loud voices (ie her, lol) and music or TV. I hide in a hole if DH is home b/c he always has the radio on. I simply cannot function with it on... I can't handle doing anything other than dealing with the bombarding music. kwim? Oh, we both get motion sickness fairly easily too.

 

DNephew (14) started out like Jake, also talking very loudly and biting, but now is like me hiding from everyone and flipping out when that isn't possible. He no longer lives with us, so I have little control over helping him, but I might be able to talk to him about it.

 

Okay, I am thinking we all need to start out with gymnastic things like pushups and cartwheels, and we need something vestibular but I don't know what or when for this stuff. I want to know what to do for the sensitivity to sound other than avoiding.

 

Thank you for talking it through with me.

[MelanieM]

Carmen, you might want to pop over to Wise Ways of Women at some point. It's a pretty tight community, frequented by some wonderful alternative health peeps. We've had many, many threads there about dealing with sensory overload as so many of us (and our kids) are dealing with this stuff! So, if you're into energy work, woo-woo stuff, alternative modalities, etc. consider dropping by.

 

One thing that jumped out at me in your last post... for kids with sensory issues, spanking can be like a reset button. Basically the hit overrides the sensory overload and gives gets them back to a more comfortable place. The problem with this is that they get into a cycle where they feel out of control, so they do something that they know will bring about a spanking as a form of resetting themselves. It can become a really unfortunate, and unhealthy, cycle. If Jake is intentionally trying to bring about those scenarios, you might want to think about what's going on there and whether or not a different approach, and a replacement for that reset, could help you all out.

 

I've not experienced resonance repatterning or electrodermal testing, but am vaguely familiar with both. I think RR uses muscle testing to determine what energy modalities to use for healing? A lot of the modalities I've seen mentioned there are things I work with (chakra clearing, flower essences, breathwork, etc). So yeah, I can definitely see how that would be helpful!

 

Have you looked into EFT? Fabulous, amazing process. I find it really amazing for clearing, and especially great for in-the-moment soothing. You might like to try it for those times when you feel like you have to hide away from it all. (I totally hear you on that... I am hugely sensitive to sound and sometimes feel I might explode just from being in the same room as everyone.)

 

Oh... another suggestion for you... when any of you are feeling out of sorts that way, try to get outside with your bare feet on the ground and do some grounding exercises. I like to imagine myself anchored into the earth by roots, swaying in the breeze like tall grass -- flexible, yet firmly planted. It helps me a great deal.

 

:grouphug:

[Lovedtodeath]

Thank you Melanie. I have requested to join that forum. I knew about the whole spanking issue, with the resetting and all, but I need to find that way to break it. We didn't start out intending to spank at all, since it was a big no-no for Emily.

 

Anyone else have suggestions, specifically for when to do these things?

[AngieW in Texas]

You should try using your ds for drumming. He will probably really like it. Have him lay on his stomach. Then you drum different rhythms on him. This would be like the drumming you would do for a cystic fibrosis patient to loosen the mucous.

 

My 14yo still swings every day. She can't do full swings at home because she makes the playscape rock even though it's anchored into the ground. She rides her bike to the park and swings for at least an hour almost every day.

 

Running, jumping (on a trampoline or with a jumprope), and swimming are all good.

 

My dd likes to swing and then leap out of the swing onto the ground.

[gingersmom]

Tell your husband to come to New Jersey and meet my son.

 

He has serious sensory issues as an infant/young child. I can't even put into words what a difference OT made for him. He is a 1000% happier.

[Laurie4b]

I can tell you that occupational therapy was life-changing for my ds.

 

Some of the stuff I could and did do at home, but a great deal of the stuff was done with equipment that we did not have room to install in our home (and probably rivaled the cost of therapy), and what's more, we got the direction from someone with years of experience in terms of things we did at home. She altered the program based on what she was seeing in his sessions with her.

 

There is no way I could have or would have gotten the same results at home. Here's a paraphrase from a letter my ds wrote to his OT at the end of therapy: " I used to think I was the only one with wildness. (His word for all his sensory-seeking behavior.) I used to think I was a bad boy. Now I'm a joy boy. " If your son has sensory issues, it's also quite likely that there are other issues as well. Getting the sensory layer peeled off the onion as early as possible can rewire the brain and cut down on the other stuff your child may have to cope with.

 

The OT made such a difference that I would advise someone in a like situation to take a parttime job, borrow from a relative--whatever it took--to at least get the evaluation and at least a few months of therapy from an experienced OT. You'll then know whether you can truly take it from there or whether your child is truly benefitting in a way you couldn't duplicate. We saw an enormous change in our child in 2 months, so if dh starts out a skeptic, you might try to secure an agreement to try it for 2-3 months to see if there is any change.

[PeterPan]

Well we've only had one session of OT so far (3 1/2 hours of evaluation, with more to come!), but it has already blown my mind. It's great to do research and try to do things at home, but to talk with someone who sees how all these pieces FIT TOGETHER, that is even more amazing. And an OT brings more to it than the book will, because it's their experience applied to what they see in front of them, custom. This OT, in one session, was able to toss out some ideas that are having profound effect for us. She is able to connect with dd and talk with her about things that I didn't even get or had seen and misinterpreted. So no, I'd get over this "professional" gun-shy thing and go find yourself a good OT. I had a total misunderstanding of them and thought they were just body mechanics. They aren't. They're more like spiritual neurologists, getting into the why's of behavior and trying to figure it out. For a kid who has been told repeatedly they're BAD, this would be very affirming, kwim?

[Lovedtodeath]

It is not just "professional gunshy". DH has me on a strict medical budget, and we all have cavities and I have autoimmune problems. The money isn't there, and if it was he would be angry at me spending it on something that he doesn't think is needed. He was going off about vision therapy today.

[PeterPan]

Oh cavities, don't even get me started about teeth brushing. I found these new (to me) toothbrushes at Target. They're Colgate 360. They have plastic flaps in them to improve the cleaning effect. Even when my dd says she has brushed, her teeth aren't clean enough. These are helping. That or you could try electric toothbrushes I suppose. The OT says dd is low tone on her muscle, and it finally clicked that, duh, kids like that aren't going to push hard enough when they brush... Using that toothbrush this past 6 months we've finally gone without cavities.

[PeterPan]

You can do the VT *then* approach OT. They cost about the same, ugh.

[Lovedtodeath]

 

Oh cavities, don't even get me started about teeth brushing. I found these new (to me) toothbrushes at Target. They're Colgate 360. They have plastic flaps in them to improve the cleaning effect. Even when my dd says she has brushed, her teeth aren't clean enough. These are helping. That or you could try electric toothbrushes I suppose. The OT says dd is low tone on her muscle, and it finally clicked that, duh, kids like that aren't going to push hard enough when they brush... Using that toothbrush this past 6 months we've finally gone without cavities.

Thanks. Actually Emily hasn't had any since she turned 4. Jake has one to three at each 3 month checkup. She did too. We think it is related to my autoimmune problems when pregnant with them.

[Lovedtodeath]

:grouphug:Thank you all for responding!