My child has special needs. Can I use the information on the rest of this website?

My child has special needs. Can I use the information on the rest of this website?

Of course. Regardless of your child’s specific strengths and needs, be they related to physical/medical, social-behavioral, developmental, intellectual, or adaptive functioning, the majority of information in the other sections of this website is certainly applicable to you and your family. Sometimes, interventions or strategies might need some additional individualized changes to meet your family’s needs, such as taking smaller steps or expecting change to take a bit longer. But overall, many strategies can be applied to your family’s circumstance. Depending on your child’s specific needs, the majority of the environment and safety recommendations also apply. Regarding routines, it’s possible that you and your family have those down pat – many families that are faced with more intensive physical or behavioral health care needs are masters of incredibly complex routines and schedules. That is certainly a strength!

Keep in mind, though, that specific things like the amount of hours of sleep your child may need, due to his condition or medication effects, timing of general or sleep-related developmental milestones, or the exact steps of a bedtime routine may not be exactly the same for your little one. This is actually true for all families regardless of physical or behavioral health care needs – as there is a wide range of what is considered typical in all development.

Take pride in the fact that you are the expert of your child and family and likely his health care coordinator on top of being his parent or caregiver. If you have any questions or concerns about the applicability of any of the information on babysleep.com, be sure to check with your child’s health care provider, and ask for a referral to a pediatric sleep specialist in your area if necessary.

If you have a specific question about your child, feel free to use the Ask the Expert function of Johnson’s Bedtime app and we will be happy to respond.

Also, see my response to the question, “I don’t see my child’s health condition on this website – where else can I look?”