This is a post for my favorite special needs support forum, to answer the question “How much Floortime do you do with your autistic child?”
Our day looks something like this:
- 8AM: Wake up, usually by Bede crawling into bed with me.
- 8AM-8:20: Bede and I Floortime play in the bedroom together while the other kids eat breakfast with Sean.
- 8:20-9AM: Bede and I make our way downstairs to join the others and eat.
- 9AM-12PM: Sean works upstairs in his office and I do householdy chores like dishes and laundry while playing with the kids, checking my email, etc. Sometime in there is…
- 10AM-10:20: More Floortime with Bede.
- 12PM-1PM: If Sean isn’t teaching an afternoon class, he comes downstairs and fixes lunch for everyone.
- 1PM-5PM: Trixie and sometimes Gilbert nap for an hour or more. If the big girls are gone (on Wednesdays) I play with just the littles, and have 2 Floortime sessions with Bede. Also do more household stuff.
- 5PM-7PM: Dinner is planned, cooked and eaten.
- 7PM-10PM: Children are bathed as needed, if I’m lucky I might get to watch some PBS or knit for a while. Bedtime is at 10 or so. Bede loves bathtime Floortime, and we do that.
- 10PM-11PM: Winding Bede and Trixie down – they are the real night owls – and 20 minutes more of Floortime where we usually play on a free font site or wander through Google Images.
- 11PM-??: I attempt to stay awake. Hardly ever happens.
So we end up with something like 2-3 hours of focused Floortime every day, and lots of smaller Floortime-style interactions throughout the day. It works really well with our ‘lifestyle’ such as it is.
