What therapies for mild CP/sleep and behaviour issues?

[minipie]

DD is nearly 5. She has mild CP, left sided hemiplegia.

Physically she is doing really amazingly well, can walk run jump just appears very clumsy and tires easily when walking. Very very mild physically.

Most of the issues we have are down to tiredness and the knock on effects. She sleeps 10.5 hours a night (very early waker) and it really isn't enough, especially with the CP, so by lunchtime and beyond her behaviour goes way downhill, as does her concentration and coordination. Not sure whether the poor sleep is due to the CP or a family trait.

The only NHS treatment she gets is physio every 6 months and melatonin (which doesn't help with the early waking but is useful for getting her back to sleep after a night waking).

We have money available to spend on other therapies that might help her, and would give anything promising a shot, but there are so many out there! And DD's time and energy is limited especially now she is at school. So, I would welcome any advice on what is worth trying, especially anything that might help her sleep and relaxation levels.

Here's the ones I've heard of (though don't know much about most of these)

• Bowen
• Bobath
• Conductive education
• Tinsley House
• Retained reflexes
• Visual tracking
• Cranial osteopathy
• private physio

Any help on narrowing the list down would be much appreciated.

thanks

Ds falls over running still! His PE teacher says when they do gymnastics he's often pleased when he falls before getting to the tramped because ds rebounding off of it is terrifying

But yes trying to balance and be coordinated is so difficult and takes all of their concentration. I think it's easy to forget when you can naturally separate movements and move some limbs whilst others remain inactive that the effort involved for those who have to physically and mentally put in the effort must tire them out before they then have to do what others are doing.

My son has recently started conductive education. He is not diagnosed with CP but does have global developmental delay. He has only had three sessions so I cannot say yet how effective it has been but I do know that he loves it - I had tears in my eyes watching him yesterday.

I wonder if you could agree a flexi-schooling approach so that you could do some of these activities during school hours and help her not get so worn out.

Might be worth trying hydrotherapy. For my boy swimming always = a great night's sleep - he is an earlier riser too. He burst into my bedroom at 4:30 this morning shouting 'wakey, wakey, get out of bed'

NotHelicoptering Totally understand, I forget often to make allowances for DD as she seems so capable, my worry is if I forget then teachers etc certainly will forget Also, may I ask what signs led to your DD's ASD diagnosis? Asking as I have wondered about ASD/ADHD for DD although very hard to tell what is "just" tiredness as she behaves completely differently when tired vs not tired.

dimples can I ask, what does CE actually involve (everything I read was a bit vague)? Does it need to be done for lots of hours each week to have an impact?

Oh and she adores swimming but it doesn't help her sleep! She seems to sleep worse the more tired she gets, overtiredness and adrenaline basically

My son's CE sessions have been 1:1 one hour weekly. There is a lot of singing involved and very careful placement of the body before engaging in tasks. Colours and counting seem to be recurring themes. This week he did:

Threading
Series of action songs holding a glitter filled batton (e.g. 2 hand hold and lifting it behind his head, then using it for row, row your boat etc
Squeezing balls
Climbing up wall bars - to rescue the toys
Squatting down and jumping up
An obstacle course including wobble boards, a narrow bench (which he then had to do backwards)
Using tweezers to feed pretend fruit to a toy

I think one of the things it is intended to help with is self esteem and I can really see that

Ok, sounds very similar to what DD has done with physio. Guess it may be subtly different though. Physio has never sung

A fun exercise to do for balance is to move toys with your legs! You pick them up with your toes and move them elsewhere - you can use your child's favourite mini toys - we use lego men!

DDs first words were after 3, she was very routine bound, avoided people, sensory difficulties particularly with sound. It was very quick and seemed to be classic asd. Tied up with developing epilepsy.

She actually at 5 spoke fine. Just decided not to until nearly 4, then pretty advanced and hf. Still talks only when she wants but it's quite expressive when she does, more so than her big brother, though I think it's a fantastic memory for flowery phrasing. She does amazingly well, though we do home ed. I don't know what school would bring, I could see it going very very wrong!

Ah ok, thanks. DD doesn't have any of classic signs of asd in that way, it's more been PDA I've wondered about during her worse periods, though think extreme tiredness is a more likely explanation. Adhd I'm still on the fence about, as you say I think school will provide a bit of an acid test...