Kids on the Move

Because Nathan had been so sick and spent so much time in the NICU, he was developmentally behind other 4 1/2 month old babies.  To assist us in learning how to help Nathan in his development, the hospital connected us with an early intervention program in our area.

Before Nathan was discharged from Primary Children's, his physical therapist from the NICU got in contact with Kids on the Move, an early intervention program in our area.  A representative from the program came to the hospital and met with Bekah.  They discussed Nathan's history, what our needs were, and what services they would be able to provide.

Then, the first week Nathan was home, we received a call from Mark from KOTM to schedule our first therapy session for the following week.

When Mark came, we explained Nathan's history and noted that the biggest issue that we were having with him was his complete dislike of be put in new positions.  He only liked to lay on his back or sit.  Every other position was scary and freaked him out.

Mark explained that we needed to work with Nathan to get him into new positions, even though it may be scary and uncomfortable for him, but also still try to make him feel safe and supported.  One of the first new positions we tried was kneeling.  And needless to say, Nathan didn't like it at all!

Even though Nathan didn't like the therapy, it was something that we could do everyday and something that we could use to actually gauge his progress.  So it was really good, even though it was going to be really hard.

In addition to his new physical therapist, KOTM also provided Nathan with an occupational therapist, Gary, to help us with Nathan's oral therapy (eating and other oral stimulation activities).

It was really wonderful to have such great help as we dealt with all of Nathan's developmental delays.  It was really frustrating to have Nathan be so limited in the things that he could do and not know what to do or how to really deal with a lot of things.

But as we would bring them up with Gary and Mark, they always seemed to know the answers we needed.