What is actually helping Eloise’s development

Over the years of sharing our Eloise struggles publicly, we’ve seen that things like multiple physiotherapy sessions weekly are not only helpful, but necessary to keep Eloise from regressing developmentally. And physiotherapy like the DMI intensive we have been lucky enough to do 3 times a year has been helping her progress even more alongside daily home exercises. (Thanks to our local government and Lastefond which help support her in all of this!)

But, as parents who often feel helpless and want to accelerate her development, it is so tempting to add many more things on top of what she is already doing and hope it will make a difference.

In fact, 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. In fact, some of them have helped Eloise. It just turns out that, as of today, I cannot remember a single time one of these miraculous treatments made an undeniable, positive, instant difference in Eloise.

But one thing I can now confirm that HAS helped Eloise’s development on top of her constant physiotherapies? 

Time in her stander. 

I am not sure why that surprised me so much. But it turns out that boring, plain old upright time in a stander is what she has to have for her development to keep moving forward along with her weekly therapies. 

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.

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

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

No magic fad therapies or diets or supplements. Just time in a stander as a necessary to supplement all her other therapies. (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 and whether or not to try one of the many wonderful therapies that may cost a lot and may or may not make a difference, if you havent prioritized it yet, maybe try that boring stander gathering dust in a corner each day. It just may surprise you.