Just when I thought Sawyer’s birth was the only hospital visit we’d have this summer…..We had an injury come our way and spent a day at the emergency room for Rory.
Here’s an article further explaining the situation and some slide safety reminders. https://health.usnews.com/…/slide-safety-how-to-protect…
First off….if you call a triage nurse, explain the situation, and she suggests going to the ER, go to the ER! We dismissed the idea of the Emergency Room per the nurse’s suggestion and we went to urgent care to get his leg checked first. Don’t ask me why, but that’s what we did and ended up paying a $50 copay for urgent care. Lesson learned. Go to ER for a broken leg, or even the thought that it might be a broken leg!
Rotate the activities to keep the mind stimulated: Keeping a toddler’s mind stimulated during this time is important. Rory is not able to run around like typical toddlers so we have been switching out a variety of new toys and art activities to keep his mind stimulated on a regular basis. I suggest asking friends to borrow toys! No need to buy new toys all the time. Check and see if your local city has a “Lending Toy Library” (ours is run through a local Facebook group and so well organized.) The toy library has been an awesome place to try out new toys and haven’t spent a penny.
We have been doing a variety of at home arts/craft/sensory activities that are very low budget. Some favorites include watercolors, pipe cleaners in a shoebox (just punch holes in box and poke pipe cleaners through) washing toys in the tub during sponge bath time (he can only to sponge baths while his cast is on but he was so excited to wash toys with a damp rag), dirt and trucks, stickers on paper/boxes, kinetic sand. These simple activities have kept him busy and stimulated in the past weeks!
Switch the caregivers around (if possible): We have a heaping amount of support with our family. We live with Andy’s mom currently and both of our families live nearby. Being able to switch up the caregiving routine has allowed for us to not get burnt out on the caregiving, and in addition helps keep Rory stimulated with different people coming to play with him. Uncle’s, my friends, grandparents and both Andy and I have been taking turns to play with him.
Extra screen time is ok! We give Rory screen time but keep it limited (maybe 20 min a day, if at all.) However, this is a season of Rory’s life where he is getting much more screen time than normal. Cozying up on the couch and watching some TV is totally ok when a child has a cast. Try working in some educational shows or play videos of your child for themself to watch on screen. They love seeing photos/videos of family and friends too.
Daily walks are crucial: We went on daily walks before the injury but now daily walks are even more crucial because it allows for a change of environment for a non-mobile child to engage his sense in a different way.
The cast was removed after 4 weeks and we are now at the end of it with a boot for 2 weeks. Looking back the time has gone really fast. To put it into an interesting perspective, the timeline of Rory’s cast is (nearly) the first 1.5 months of Sawyer’s life and looking back at those photos gets me thinking how far we’ve come. Here’s to raising kids and the journeys that go along with it! I am so relieved we can take that boot off and get him in water to soak up the rest of the hot summer heat!
