Hypermobile 6 year old - advice on sitting at a table

[Longtalljosie]

DD is hypermobile and has poor core strength. Getting her to sit at the table and eat is a bit of a nightmare. She has a barstool type highchair to make it easier for her but it hasn't helped that much. She ends up flopped all over the place, with one foot (or both feet) on the floor, kind of diagonal. I'm concerned she'll have more trouble when she moves up the school as she'll probably be called upon to sit still for longer than at present.

Is there anything anyone's tried that's worked? Would it be better raising an adult sized chair so there's a wider base for her to sit on? Any exercises to help sitting in particular? She does swimming etc. We have OT support but due to cuts it's impossible to pin them down at the moment.

DSs core strength was flagged up as an issue, and sitting on (well regularly falling off) his chair at dinner is something of an issue.

Having somewhere to put his feet helps, the tripp trapp chair was really good until he decided it was babyish. He still uses it as a desk chair though.

He now has a step stool under the dinner table to rest his feet on.

Core strength exercises, which we try to do regularly and as long as we keep up do seem to help. www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/core-exercises-for-kids.html

If you can pin down the OT ours was great and had quite a few cushions/wedges etc which we could try out.

A footstool! Why on earth didn't I think of that? Thank you so much - I'll give it a go. Thanks for the link as well

DS2 has found that a move'n'sit cushion helps a lot.

Thanks all xx

We have been doing physio for core strength/stability this term and it has made a difference. At school he has a leckey pal chair the OT organised to support him so he can concentrate on work rather than sitting. At home we have a footstep and wobble cushion but he still won't manage to sit for a whole meal.

Arms on the chair works well too.