Hey folks,
I am wondering if anyone has any experience dealing with transport of disabled children.
My youngest daughter is approaching 3 1/2 and is severely developmentally delayed. She cannot even come close to sitting unaided and generally has poor head control. She's had epilepsy since 6 months old and is completely tube fed. She is coming up to 15kg. She has a postural support wheelchair supplied by the NHS, goes to a special needs nursery but we don't currently get any transport for her.
Now we've been granted the higher mobility component of our DLA, so we are investigating the best approach to transport. We know we will eventually end up with a WAV (wheelchair accessible vehicle) so TBH we thought we'd just go straight for that, rather than continuing to struggle to get her in her standard car seat. Her standard car seat swivels but given I'm having to support all her weight on one arm to guide her head with the other this is getting increasingly difficult as she gets bigger.
However the guidance says that by default all children under 22kg should travel in a "suitable" car seat. Has anyone else been in my scenario? What did you do? I'm going to speak to our OT about options but I don't want to ruin my (or my wifes) back and wrists transferring her, or ruin my bank account with a special needs car seat and hoist if we're likely to be in a WAV in the future anyway?
Ta