Babysitter and Kids with Special Needs

[ParkerMama]

Is it hard for you to find a baby sitter for your child with special needs?

Parker's situation is unique in the fact that unless a nurse is here I can't go anywhere.

But I know that my friends who have kids with Down syndrome find it hard to get sitters for their child. It's especially hard for Mom's that work.


What have your experiences been?

[kadiera]

We're approaching a non-nurse solution. It's terrifying...but good, because it means A is more stable. Today he started preschool 2 days a week...with his nurse...as a part of our transition planning to trach removal and losing our nursing. They're fine with his motor skill delays. Fine with non-verbal kids. They've had severely autistic kids, kids who didn't speak a word of English when they started, and so on, so I think they'll do fine with A. They've even had a student teacher with fairly severe CP, which I found intriguing.

The trach isn't the only issue, but it's the big one right now, and it drives all our decisions. The speech delay is a challenge, but I think being around others will help that. He's 100% orally fed, but only in the last 6 or 7 weeks, so it's still tenuous, and his g-tube might still be needed. He's got an AFO, which I think anyone could figure out, but it's just one more thing to keep track of. We've got his med schedule down to the point where he could not take meds during the day while we're at work...as long as he doesn't get sick.

He's probably sitter-friendly right now, when awake, because his trach is capped, but I'm too paranoid to test it.

As it is, outside of my husband and I, and our nurses, we have exactly one other person in our circle who is trach trained (and she's not related to us). She's taken our son out a few times, and kept him all day last week when we had no nurse (though, to be fair, they had 3 hours of therapy in there too, so it wasn't strictly one-on-one). We just can't afford to risk someone who's not trained right now....and I don't know what that means once his trach is gone.

[Elizabeth Cypres Brown]

We have yet to leave Joshua with a babysitter. How do I go about finding one and really right now we can't afford to pay for one. So we go out separately, haven't been on a date night since he was born. My mom lives close but Joshua not walking at 29lbs I think would be too much for her to carry around. My MIL could probably do it but she's 2 hours away.

Joshua doesn't really have "special needs" in that anyone could take care of him. He doesn't have any medical issues (knock on wood) and is just basically developmentally delayed so if you can take care of a 29lb toddler who doesn't walk or talk then you can take care of him. Problem is we can't afford a babysitter even if we could find one. I am wondering if once we get our new PCA if she could babysit.

[ParkerMama]

@kaderia So excited for preschool! Let me know how it goes, k?

[ParkerMama]

@Elizabeth,

I hear ya about not being able to afford a sitter. If we lived closer, I'd have you little one over in a heartbeat!

[Elizabeth Cypres Brown]

Thanks Tammy, I appreciate it!