Holidays & your child with special needs- tips for the NICU, visiting Santa, dinners & traveling

From spending holidays in the NICU, finding developmentally appropriate toys, eating at Grandma’s house (without a meltdown!), to visiting Santa in a loud, bright mall, the holidays can be oh so hard for a child with special needs. Here is a walk down blog post memory lane to help you get through the next few weeks and even have some fun.

• Spending holidays in the NICU will give you ideas on how to brighten your Hanukkah, Christmas or New Year’s eve if your baby is still in the hospital.
• Toys glorious toys! will give you shopping ideas for children with special needs. Be sure to keep your child’s adjusted age in mind if she was born prematurely.
• Going to do a bit of traveling over the holidays? Prepare your child with special needs for the trip, to avoid hiccups that could turn into meltdowns.
• Is the thought of bringing your young child to a relative’s house for dinner giving you a sense of dread instead of excitement?  These two posts may help: Bracing for the holidays and Holidays or :(.  Learn tried and true tips from parents of kids with special needs.
• Visiting Santa is do-able for kids with special needs is a post that explains the options that exist for children with sensory challenges. Read on to locate a sensory special Santa in your area to take the angst out and put the joy into this visit.

We wish you a stress-free, calm, smooth holiday season. If you have any tips that have worked for you, please share them! You can find more posts on parenting a child with special needs, here.

Questions? Send them to AskUs@marchofdimes.org.

 

Tags: adjusted age, holidays, NICU, premature, Santa, sensory challenges, Special needs, toys, transitions, traveling, trips