My wonderful hubby has built Little Man is very own stander!!!

Our ECI services here in the rural north texas area are super about providing equipment provided that they have said equipment. To my knowledge, they have one stander that a little girl is currently using. I was told that she will turn 3 sometime this summer after which it will be out turn to have it. I was happy with the idea but I really really wanted to get him standing sooner- like yesterday sooner. Anyone who has flipped through any of the hundreds of "special needs" catalogs has probably gotten a case of sticker shock. I knowe I have, I mean thousands of dollars for a stander? The cheapest one I found was $600 and did'nt look like it could do the job all that well. Others, were uber expensive, but had all the bells & whistles. I was continually drawn to the wooden ones. They looked fairly straight foward, and dare I say, "easy" to make. I gathered all the catalogs that had standers in them & showed all the pictures ofthe wooden ones to my husband and said, "what do you think?" 2 weeks later, construction began. 2 weeks after that- the stander was finished. It is completely adjustable. We can move side pieces farther apart, remove the head rest, he can face foward or backward, be at a 30 degree angle or a 10 degree angle (or any angle in between!) and add padding as we see fit. I feel like the possibilties are endless! And best of all, Little likes it. For at least 10 minutes at a time before he starts to whine.

I showed it to our PT & she was really excited. She showed how to better place the straps (old belts) and where padding will be most beneficial. To start off, we are placing him in it on his belly (prone?) at the 30 degree angle until he can tolerate about 30 minutes. This will help with head control and reaching. Once he can do those 2 things easily, we will work on getting him in it on his back & at the 10 degree angle.

Thsi piece of equipment has me so excited I can hardly stand it!