What is actually helping Eloise’s development

Over the years of sharing our Eloise struggles publicly, we’ve gotten a lot of kind suggestions from lovely humans. Like:

Medical keto diet

Music therapy

Visual therapy 

CBD

Nemechek protocol

Probiotics (not this brand, THAT brand)

Prebiotics

Psychobiotics

This diet

That diet

This therapy 

That therapy

More vitamins and supplements than I can count 

And truly, I think that these things are genuinely helpful for many. It just turns out that, as of today, I cannot remember a single time one of these miraculous treatments made an undeniable, positive, lasting difference in Eloise.

But one thing I can now confirm that HAS helped Eloise’s development? 

Time in her stander. 

That’s it. Boring, plain old upright time in a stander. 

How can we now be so confident?

A few years ago, when she had months long break from a stander, she developed hip dysplasia. When we added standing time in again regularly all saw huge development gains (but we didn’t realize it could be connected to her stander). This winter we noticed how much she regressed when she had around 10 weeks without it. And just this month, when she was without it for 1.5 weeks during illness (but still had all her normal therapies, movement, and exercises) it made a noticeable negative difference.

But now that she is back in school with her stander this week, after only a few days the positive changes were immediately noticeable.

Eloise was moving around the floor on her own again by Wednesday. And last night I kept catching her trying to stand up on her own with no support at dinner. (The video here.)

https://youtube.com/shorts/ewlISEvQNzw?si=cYxrv_vhZKVN6ZYk

I thank our lucky stars that we accidentally learned what helps Eloise.

No magic therapies or diets or supplements. Just time in a stander. (Which her lucky caregiver moves actively for 20 minutes at a time 2x a day so Eloise will tolerate it. 😅)

So just in case you’re a parent wondering what to do to support your disabled kids’ development, if you havent prioritized it yet, maybe try that boring stander gathering dust in a corner. It just may surprise you.