Outpatient therapy for one of them

Starting sometime next month DD will have one hour of speech therapy a week in the local children's hospital. It's going to be sometime during the day, which means I will have to bring DS with us also.

I'm dreading it. They don't have many toys at all to keep kids busy while they wait, and DS is the kind of kid that gets bored pretty easily with one activity and likes to get into everything. They'll be just 3... How do you keep a 3yo busy for one hour every week in a waiting room???

 

Is there anyway you could either bring along someone? Or get a babysitter for that one hour? Or are there errands you could do during that time frame? My boys go to playgroup once a week. I take Annabella out to Target or the grocery store usually.

I think you talked about, or mentioned, Leapsters/Leap Frog, etc. Would one of those items be an option? For that one day/week?

 

No, I can't bring anyone and we're not allowed to leave the place unfortunately. I was thinking about leapsters but I don't think he would get it yet. I'm honestly stumped!

 

We have the little "My First leaptop" laptops that my boys love, so yours is definitely old enough. You could also bring a portable DVD player and kid headphones!

 

We have OT at a place for our younger girl, and our boys are almost 3. It's 3 days a week for an hour each and a similar situation, not many toys in the waiting room. I pack a backpack with toys that I just keep packed (notebooks, stickers, crayons, small cars, small building things, magnets, books....). One boy is pretty good about getting his trucks and playing, the other is just a busy body so I am largely one on one with him. I have them play for a half an hour and then I bring the Ipad and they get to watch a show for that last half an hour. Of course, the playing if first! One thing that was helpful but getting all three into the building made it too hard was them having their own bag to bring. I ended up just doing the backpack instead but they liked having their own bag-that I ended up packing but it would probably be nice to put their own things in. We go through a lot of stickers at therapy.

One day the whole first half of "play time" was them watching the snowplow in the parking lot, that was a good day!

 

A bag of toys, and interesting new books. I found that I often had all of the children in the waiting room entranced if I started to read mine a story. The library is a great source of unread books for this sort of situation.

 

I did one child in OT and the other not for 9 months at age old 2 to young 3.


I packed a large goody bag of things to do and brought it to the appointments (crayons, coloring books, stickers, books, puzzles, soft toys, color wonder products,snacks, simple games). I often played with her , but usually she found a 'friend' to play with while we waited (often a child waiting for an appointment or a sibling like her). It was doable with my DDs personality. I made sure to switch up activities every 10 minutes or so. She enjoyed the one on one time with me and it was not as hard as I feared.

 

As the others posted, I bring a bag of books and a few hot wheels cars. That along with the tradition of pancakes and hashbrowns afterwards work well for my 3 yr olds.

 

New books! Hit the library the day before and stock up, then you'll be able to read to him for a large part of the hour. At least, that works for us.

 

He doesn't like being read to Plus I speak French during the day and finding French books is hard... I'm not good at reading aloud in French already, forget English.

I guess I'll bring a bag of random things, but I can already see DD getting mad because he gets to play with it and she doesn't.

 

You can get French books off of ebay pretty cheaply and/or books on tape if you want to go that route--- the libraries usually have good selections both on tape/CD and books in English or French (ours is not a french speaking area , but they have a large choice of books in other languages -Spanish/French/Mandrin, etc. You can also 'order' free loan use of books from across the country- ask your librarian. Our used book store has a vast selection of non-local languages books for very little. I would stock up for the future---in a few years they will go to school (or you would homeschool) and you will want to have a lot of previous exposure to whatever languages you speak and/or want him to learn (English/French). Even simple board books are good for short read alouds (less than 5 minutes).

How about a CD player & headphones (or Ipod) with some favorite music?

At that age mine LOVED the magna doodle....we had the bigger one and they would play with it for hours! No mess either.


Dont get out the bag until DD goes to work w/ the therapist or only take out one thing for both to play with while you wait. Clean it up right around when she will be done (you should know the time).

You may also find other kids 'waiting' in the waiting room and that may provide some distraction. You will be surprised at home many families bring 'waiting' kids with them while another child gets therapy....it will help to see you are not the only one in the same situation. Most of the kids in our area were under age 5 (older kids were in school when we went) so even though there were not a lot of toys, there was usually a friend to play with.

I hope it goes well!!