I had a 13 month old patient Amy* last week who was brought in by her mother. This child had not yet started crawling and therefore fher mother had brought her in to see if we could help. Amy, who is an only child, was a very clingy baby who was quite attached to her mother. During the treatment session Amy started getting distressed due to the activities and positions we were putting her in as part of her assessment. She started crying and her mother was required to settle her down. At this point, gauging how distressed she had become, the supervisor and I decided that we had probably reached our limit with Any for the day and instead we should now try to simply provide advice for the mother on what we had seen so far though the use of a doll rather than handle Amy. Once we got the doll out however we noticed how interested Amy was in the doll and how her mood had improved. Taking this opportunity we instructed Amy's mother on what we wanted her t do with Amy so we could continue our assessment, while we distracted Amy with the doll. Amy's mood continued to improve and I was eventually able to hold Amy again, being somewhat more cautious this time and finish what needed to be done.
While I was in this session I was constantly watching Amy to decide when it was time to halt treatment or when she was simply being abit grizzly but was still able to continue. As in many other sessions with young children, there is line between the child crying out a little because they dont like the position you have put them in and a child who has had too much and needs a cuddle from mum. But as I young adult myself who has not had all that much contact with young children in my life I often find it hard to decide when to draw this line. When I first started this placement, if the child even made a peep I would stop what I was doing but as time has gone on and I have been around alot more babies I have learnt the differnce between this grizzly cry that I can actually deal with myself compared to a child who is really uncomfortable and needs their mother to console them. And then once they have been consoled when is the appropriate time to start treatment again, or has we got as much out of the child as we can for that day. With Amy I guess I realised that you dont have to abandon a treatment session as soon as a child becomes distressed because they can easily change their mood again. You just ned to keep watching them.
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This is a really good point and it is excellent that you have been able to determine a difference in babies so that you know when you can deal with them and when they need a parent. On my paediatric patient I had only a small amount to do with babies and found it very hard to know how much I could do with them if they showed signs of distress or became upset. I also found that a lot of parents are so over protective that it does not really allow you to determine these boundaries, as at the first sign of their baby being upset they will give them a cuddle straight away. This is nice if the child is very upset but if it something they will get over quickly like being a little bit uncomfortable in a position then these parents just end up interfering.
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