Lil'bub Therapy

I always get a lot of questions about Avery's therapies. Like, what does she do exactly? I understand the curiosity. I had no idea about any of this before we had her. Right now we do four main therapies, multiple times a week. Physical therapy is definitely the most intense, and Avery has it both in the water and "on land," as we call it.

I think I've already mentioned a few times that lil'bub is a water baby. Her sweet little face lights up whenever she sees the pool, she loves it! However, this was not always the case...although she has never hated the water, it took her some time to get used to doing physical therapy in the pool--especially with someone else handling her. She started swim therapy for the first time when she was one and a half. You might remember this post from more than a year ago...you can see that I was getting in the water with her in the beginning to make her more comfortable. Thankfully it didn't take her too long to graduate into big girl and let mommy sit on the sidelines! She shows off for me now :)

Once one of her most despised positions, lil'bub now L-O-V-E-S to float on her back. She'd do it for the entire session if her therapist would let her!

Her current new fave is playing with a noodle. She sits on it like a horse to practice balance, and holds on like handle bars to practice kicking.

She does lots of other things in the water too, like standing, walking and practicing strokes. And going under water-- still not one of her faves, but she knows to close her eyes and hold her breath! Hopefully all of these things will make her more independent in the pool someday, as well as build the strength she needs on that right side. When she meets her physical therapist "on land," it's usually at school, where she works on stretching, weight bearing, and walking, among many other things!

Avery also sees an occupational therapist twice a week. She works primarily on lil'bub's right arm with more weight bearing, stretching and massage. We are all working on strengthening those muscles, as well as the connections in her brain that control that side. She used to really hate anybody messing with her right arm and leg, but her tolerance has increased a lot in the last six months. I think it has something to do with the Botox injections she's been getting, and hopefully some maturity too ha!

 weight bearing

 stretch and massage

And last but not least, she meets a speech therapist twice a week for breakfast. They work together on drinking, chewing, and jaw strengthening. That last one is apparently the key to Avery starting to talk. She sure does talk now, but not much that we can understand yet! Her speech therapist uses different tools and crunchy foods to work all those muscles in there that will eventually form the sounds, to form the words, that will melt our hearts whenever they come ♥.

Thankfully, some of her therapists are able to see Avery at school. This is such a huge help to me! I love that they are able to coordinate with the teachers, who then use the same techniques to continue her progress. There are a handful of sessions each week that are not at school though, and I've really been wondering how our Baby Bub is going to handle going with us, and how I'm going to handle it all myself... it's certainly going to be interesting! Baby Bub just kicked kind of hard--I'm pretty sure it's to assure me that we will work it out. I'm pretty sure.