*Artslvr*

BirdGirl01

I have an OT question for you.  DD just qualified for services - speech therapy and likely OT for motor issues as well.  I know you're doing OT with your DS.  Are you home when they do it?  They'll come to our house but I'm not home during the day - our nanny is.  I'm just trying to figure out how this is likely to work with our schedule.  I'm guessing I'll have to be there for at least some of this since a lot of DD's therapy seems like it will be about "training" us as parents.

Artslvr

Our therapist comes at 8:00 am on my telework day, which works out well, because I can start my work day at 9:00 (well, 9:15 by the time I drive DS to his DCPs house and get back to my computer).  Can you adjust your schedule one day a week to do something like that - either at the begining of the day - go into work one hour later - or at the end of the day - leave early?

Our service is definitely mostly training us to work with him.  Our hour is spent talking about his progress, playing with him so she can show me how to help him with his gross motor and fine motor stuff, time in the highchair so she can show me methods to work on his eating, then talking about what to work on in the upcoming week.  During all fo this I'm taking notes like mad.

I'm sure your provider will want to work with both you and the nanny, since you both provide care to your daughter - I know our OT wants to have a few sessions at DS's DCP's house during a lunch time so she can show the DCP some eating methods to do while he's with her during the day.  If you can't schedule to be there every week, I'd plan to be there during the session, say, every other week, and have your nanny take really good notes at the ones you can't make so you know what they worked on.

When I told my supervisor I was getting help to get DS to learn to chew/eat - my supervisor was very understanding "clearly your child eating is more important than clocking in at 8:00" etc.  I'm pretty lucky with my supervisor with things like this.  He has no kids, yet sympathizes with the plight of a working mom with three little kids.

BirdGirl01

Very helpful, thanks!  I have a super flexible schedule, so it won't be much of an issue if the therapist can come at 8:00.  Something in the middle of the day would be harder.  I just wanted to have some idea of what to expect. 

Artslvr

Hurray for flexible schedules - you shouldn't have a problem I suspect.  I was lucky that my OT was willing to do an early appt. like that.  She lives near me and has a newborn at home, so she is no stranger to early mornings.  Frankly if she was not going to be able to do that, I was going to ask them to assign me another person.  So just keep in mind that's always an option too - they'll assign someone to you, but ask to see if they can assign you someone who has a schedule that fits yours. 

BirdGirl01

Thanks.  I asked a little bit about how they assign therapists yesterday because I really liked the therapist that did her assessment a lot, and they told me it was based on schedule and insurance, so I did get the sense that they work with you on the schedule.  Are you going through PIE?  I know you're in a different area, but I'm curious what your experience has been with PIE.  I haven't been terribly impressed with our coordinator so far.  DD still needs to get an assessment by an OT because she's having some trouble walking.  The OT completely failed to show up yesterday, which to their credit they were very apologetic about.  I'm just wondering if there is more of this to come on the coordination side.  I'm sure we'll stick with it for the first 6 months and see how it goes.  I'm happy that we had place to go where they can do all the assessments at once and work on a global plan for her.  If we had had to get her separately assessed for her walking and speech I would have had no idea where to start!  But, we may end up deciding to just work directly with the therapists after that if PIE doesn't contribute much to the process.  Or maybe she'll graduate in 6 months.  Who knows.

Artslvr

I'm not sure where you are but I'm in Fairfax County and my service is through one of their contractors, Chesapeake Children Something-Or-Other.  Their other contractor is Child First.  My Ffx Cty coordinator has been really great - I wonder if you can ask for a different coordinator?