When Your New Baby Arrives
What does this mean for the Special Needs Child and the Doman Method™ Program?
Occasionally, one of our mothers on the Doman Method™ Program will ask the important question, “Is it the right time to have another child?” Of course, for any family this is a very personal question, especially when they have another child with special needs.
If the family is considering it and they ask me for my opinion, I will always encourage the family. Our families work selflessly to help their child with special needs. For the child with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Delay or Down Syndrome, it has been a long road for the family and for the child. With their selfless love and deep knowledge of child development, adding another baby to the family will certainly make this world a better place.
When the family finds out that they are expecting, they are ecstatic. The staff of Doman International are usually the first to know!
Many mothers go into a small panic right before a new baby arrives, but this is especially the case for a mother of a child with special needs who is doing the Doman Method™ Program. Usually their questions are, “How do I cope? I am doing my very best to get my immobile child walking or my blind child seeing or speaking. How can I do this and handle a newborn?”
Each of these questions are absolutely valid.
I know from experience that most mothers have the special ability to make it work.
I know from experience that most mothers expect me to tell them just to carry on. But actually, I have learned how important it is to step back. Yes, step back. When the baby arrives, it is a special time for you, for the newborn, and for your child with special needs.
In working with hundreds of mothers who go through this, I have compiled my recommendations for you to help this process go as smoothly as possible. Here are my suggestions for when the new brother or sister arrives:
First Step: Before the new baby is born, prepare the older sibling. Write homemade books about the arrival of the new baby.Encourage and initiate lots of discussion about the baby’s arrival, their role as an older sibling, and the positive aspects about having a younger sibling.
Second Step: Mother needs rest, and to make certain she is taking vitamins. This is a very important step not to be missed. Mothers need prenatal vitamins during pregnancy, but also supplementation after pregnancy. Getting yourself sleeping is important, as sleep deprivation for new parents makes life much, much harder. To get yourself sleeping well, you need your baby to sleep well (see step five).
Third step: When the baby is born, enjoy the moment. Both you and your special needs child both deserve time to enjoy the new baby. There’s no need to rush back into the program immediately.
Fourth Step: Get bonding time. There must be time for bonding between baby and family. This is vital. Your older child (the child with special needs) will become a big sibling. This is a special step and should be thoroughly enjoyed. They need to spend a lot of time together.
Fifth Step: Create a daily schedule for the little one. It is very important to get the new baby on a schedule before starting back up on a program. This schedule might be different from one child to another, and cannot be rushed. I do suggest becoming acquainted with the “Sleep Sense Program” a book and sleep program created by Dana Obleman. It’s a smart way to look at sleep and can help you sleep train your baby. Once your baby is sleeping well, you can get back to a normal sleep routine.
Sixth Step: Start a Doman Method Program with Baby. We suggest a program of visual stimulation for the newborn and time to crawl on the infant baby track. This will help the new baby become neurologically matured and sleep. Trust me, doing this will make it easier to begin the program with the older sibling. Reading the book “How Smart is Your Baby?” can be helpful, as well as “Fit Baby, Smart Baby, Your Baby!”
Seventh Step: Begin the Big Brother / Big Sister Program. This is a very simple program that I did with all my kids. I love this program.
How it works: We sit big brother or sister down and we explain their new role as the big sibling. It is a very special discussion. We make homemade books about being an older sibling and how important it is. We give the older sibling a list of five things to do with their new sibling (5 responsibilities they have to help care for the new baby). If it is an older child, we can increase it to eight or ten things.
These things are simple and easy, such as from reading to the baby, to getting diapers, to cleaning the new baby track.
Make a list of the responsibilities for your child to remind you and them to do daily. With my children, I created a 30-day checklist where the older sibling had to complete the responsibilities every day for a month. At the end of the month, we made a certificate saying that Marlowe has now earned the position of big brother. It was done in a very special way that gave it the importance it deserved.
At the end of the 30 days, I could see my four year old look and feel like an older brother. He knew his important place in our family.
I was blessed to do this program three times. Each of the three times, I was always surprised with the big results of such a simple program.
After my second time doing this program, I realized this program would work with our children with special needs who were on our Advanced Doman Program.
Having been asked the question repeatedly, “How do I prepare my special needs child for the new baby?” it dawned on me… you should do it exactly the way you need to prepare any child. I realized our children with special needs needed their place in the family just like everyone else. It does not matter if a child is immobile or cannot talk, the program does work. Hundreds of children with special needs have earned their rightful, respected place in the family as older sibling.
Eighth Step: Restart Your Child’s program gradually. Our mothers will ask when they should restart the Doman Method™ program with their child with special needs. There is no correct answer as each family is different. However, I do know that it is best to follow the above guidelines and to closely follow the above points.
Contact your Staff Coach to create a schedule that will work. When you restart the program, do it slowly and gradually. It’s not a race to get everything going.
When you restart the program, rather than focus on restarting many parts of program, focus on doing whatever you can do consistently. This will ensure success, and allow you to build on that success. Consistency is really the name of the game.