It can be difficult to help your child transition from a crib to a bed. Sometimes your child may climb out of the crib before you really feel he/she is ready for a big kid bed, and the decision is hastened. Alternatively, you make be expecting an addition to the family, which may prompt the need to move your older child to a bed. Whenever and however it happens, here are a few helpful tips for making the transition as smooth as can be.

1. Minimize the changes:

   a. Stick to the same bed time routine that was established when your child was in the crib

   b. Place the bed in the same location in the room as the crib

   c. If your child has a preferred plush toy or blankie, make sure that it makes the move to the new bed

2. Build the hype:

   a. Allow your child to help pick the sheets for his/her new bed to build excitement and to feel some ownership for the new bed.

   b. Read books together about transitioning to a bed, such as Sesame Street’s Big Enough for a Bed by Apple Jordan & John E. Barrett or Your Own Big Bed by Rita Bergstein.

   c. Make your child feel like a big boy/girl for sleeping in a big bed

3. Safety first: Many children do not realize initially that they can come right out of bed, but safety is key:

   a. Place a gate at the door to your child’s room so that he/she cannot walk out of the bedroom unsupervised and possibly happen upon danger (i.e., stairs).

   b. Survey your child’s room carefully. There may be items in the room that were not of concern when your child was confined to the crib, but that you want to remove or place out of reach in case your child comes out of bed and can explore freely. Be particularly mindful of items on the changing table, such as vitamins or medications.

Blog written by: Aviva Goldwasser, MS, OTR/L & Chaye Lamm Warburg, DPS, OTR/L, Director of POTS

For those of you who exercise regularly, you know how important it is to stretch and warm up before going for a run or hitting the gym. Similarly, it is a good idea to warm up the hands before writing. Children’s hands are small, and in turn the muscles that control the pencil for refined movement are very small and tend to tire quickly. Strengthening and stretching them before beginning homework can help your child go the distance. Also, if you notice your child’s handwriting deteriorating while he/she is completing homework, take 2-3 minutes to stretch and re-boot the muscles. It is a small investment of time, but the payoff can be huge.

Finger Opposition: Hold your fingers next to your ears. Touch your thumb to each finger from index finger to pinkie and back again.

Spider Mirrors: Put hands together at palms. Touch each fingertip on the right hand to the corresponding fingertip on the left hand. Bring fingertips in towards the middle to form a “spider” and then out.

Wrist Stretches: Extend your right arm out in front with palm down. Use your opposite left hand to bend (extend) your wrist and fingers towards your body while keeping your arm straight out in front. Repeat on the other side.

Pencil Walk: Start by grasping the pencil or wand near the point with 3 fingers. Use fingers to walk up and down a pencil or wand 5 times. Do this slowly and do not let the pencil wobble or fall.

Pencil Twirl: Hold the middle of a pencil or wand with the thumb opposite the index and middle fingers. Rotate the pencil 10 times away from the thumb, then 10 times toward the thumb. (Do not rotate it back and forth- it requires less control.)

Push Palms: Align your palms and fingers and push into the opposing hand.

Pull Hands: With your left palm facing up and your right palm facing down, curl your fingers and try to pull your hands apart, then reverse.

Blog written by:

Aviva Goldwasser, MS, OTR/L
Chaye Lamm Warburg, DPS, OTR/L, Director of POTS

Children who have compelling sensory needs they have managed to sublimate all day will most likely need a physical workout after school to feed their sensory systems, either to calm down and reorganize, or to raise their level of alertness in order to focus on homework. A 5-10 minute intense goal-oriented “workout” with a clear beginning and end is best for children who need vestibular, proprioceptive, or deep touch pressure input. The trick is to help your child find a routine that works best for him/her.

Resistive activities (proprioceptive input) that also provide some movement through space (vestibular input) are “grounding” and organizing because they incorporate “heavy work”. Engaging in these types of activities can ease the transition to homework. Activities that provide high proprioceptive with low vestibular input include:

• “Pushing out the wall”: Have your child stand facing the wall with two open palms on the wall, at shoulder level. Take two small steps backward and challenge your child to imagine making the room bigger by pushing out the wall.

• Bicycle riding, scooter riding

• Jumping rope

• Jumping on a trampoline for a set amount of time. Develop a routine that incorporates a variety of movements

• Soft, gentle bouncing while sitting on an inflatable therapy ball

• Play tug-of-war with a jump rope.  Try it sitting, on knees, and standing

• Play catch with a weighted ball (“medicine” ball).

• Push/pull heavy items such as a laundry basket, a vacuum, a heavy shopping cart, a weighted doll carriage, etc.

Helpful Hint: Avoid activities that are difficult for your child to leave when the time is up.

Blog submitted by: Aviva Goldwasser, OTR/L

1. Touch is Calming and Alerting: One of the first ways we relate to our babies is through touch. Certain types of touch calm our babies and other types of touch are alerting. Both calm states and alert states are important for babies at different points of the day. Deep and even pressure, such as a massage is calming, while light tickling is alerting. Providing your baby with a variety of touch experiences will enhance their ability to process touch sensation and respond appropriately rather than over- or under- responding. Examples of appropriate responses to touch are a child turning to someone who taps them and enjoying playing in a sandbox or with Play-Doh. Inappropriate responses are flipping out when being tapped on the shoulder or avoiding standing on line (over-responsive) or accidentally bumping into walls and other people (under-responsive).
2. Touch Teaches Babies about their Bodies: Ever notice how newborn babies move their arms and legs randomly, and often in a jerky manner? This is because they have not yet learned how their body parts are connected or how to control them. As babies develop they gain control over the different parts of their bodies and move them in an increasingly fluid way. Ultimately they turn into toddlers and young children who can master playground skills and sports. All of these skills start with body scheme and body awareness. Touch plays an important role in developing body awareness. As babies are handled and stroked they learn where their knees are in relation to their feet and how their hands are connected to their arms.
3. Touch Tells Babies about Proximity: As a babies experience touch, they begin to sense the limits of their bodies and understand where their body-ends and another begins. This allows a child to sense how close or far away people are. Why is sensing proximity important? In order to tolerate being in a crowded environment, a child must accurately perceive how close and far people are. Navigating within the environment without bumping into people and objects also requires a sense of distance. Just as we need experience to learn the size and boundaries of a car when learning to drive for the first time, a baby and child needs tactile experiences to learn the boundaries of their bodies in order to navigate efficiently in the environment.

Some ideas for tactile play:

1. Give your baby an infant massage. Check out our infant massage blog here. Join our Parenting Boot Camp for an introduction to infant massage on Sunday, April 21. Check it out here  or on Facebook.

2. Let your baby immerse his/her hands in food

3. Encourage “messy play,” such as sand, finger paint, Play-Doh and glue

4. Have toys that are a variety of sizes, shapes and textures

5. Use bath time to introduce sponges of different textures, splash in the water and play with funny foam and tub paint.  Hide foam stickers on your child’s body and ask him/her to look for them.

Take a look at this New York Times editorial, “The Power of Talking to Your Baby,” by Tina Rosenberg, for more.

What are your thoughts on medicating or not medicating ADHD?

In “Super Stretch Yoga” (iPhone/iPad app; Free), Super Stretch and his friends take kids on a journey to feeling “super!” through yoga poses and breathing exercises. Each pose is worth a gold star. Once your child collects 12 stars, you upload a photo of your child/ren doing their favorite pose.

Why Yoga?

• Gross Motor Skills: Yoga encourages balance, strength and coordination.
• Sensory Modulation: The sensory input provided by yoga poses, slow even movements and deep breathing, are calming and regulating. This app can be used as part of a sensory diet before bed-time.
• Motor Planning: Weight bearing, which is essential to yoga poses, provides proprioceptive input. Poses requiring head inversion provide vestibular input. Proprioceptive and vestibular input heighten sense of body in space to improve motor planning.

Who is it for?

This app is appropriate for preschool and elementary school aged children.

Why we love it!

“Super Stretch Yoga” is kid-friendly. Real children demonstrate each pose, so it is engaging and relatable. The music is calming, and kid-friendly.

Submitted by: Ariela Warburg Harcsztark, OTR/L