Ethan Sandwich Game....Good for Proprioceptive System!

Recently, I have noticed that Ethan is needing more & more heavy work during the day. If he doesn't get a lot of this on a daily basis, he is extremely restless, more clumsy, and doesn't sleep as well. This summer it was quite easy to get in a daily "workout" because we had a pool in our backyard that we would swim in almost every day. Even when the weather got cooler, my husband would take Ethan outside on our large trampoline & jump for a long time. Now, however, it's darker earlier & getting colder so all of our outside things are becoming less & less dependable for us to help Ethan in this area. We do have several things inside our home (jumping on single trampoline, helping with housework using "big boy muscles", etc.), but Ethan seems to be getting bored with all of these things in our home. So, we have started to be a bit creative....

One evening when my husband had been gone all day & I was at the end of my rope with Ethan, I came up with a new game.....Making an Ethan Sandwich. Often, Ethan gets all of the pillows & blankets from all over the house & makes a big pile in our living room. He will jump on this pile, hide under the pile or even roll around in the pile....all good for his proprioceptive system. So, here's how it started....

After a day that seemed to never end.....we've all had them, right?......this mommy needed a moment to myself. So, I put Ethan on his iPad, and snuck off to my bedroom for 5 minutes of peace. Pretty soon Ethan made his way back to me. He crawled up on the bed & began to gather pillows for a pile. Knowing that part of his issues for the day was that his body was needing input, I started squishing him slightly under a pillow...something that we do a lot with our living room couch pillows. Ethan loves it & needs it. Well, to turn it into a game, we decided that the pillows were bread & we were making an Ethan sandwich.

I think because he is getting bigger, he is needing more pressure than previously, so that meant more weight than just one pillow. So, we added more pillows.....and labeled them as pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, bacon, ketchup, and other sandwich toppings.

Ethan loved it! We played this game for at least 45 minutes, and often times Ethan would just lay still once the sandwich was made.....a sign that it was working. So here are some pictures of our Ethan Sandwich game. Cheap, easy, and it worked! Ethan has asked to play this many times since. You can see how much it relaxed him in the pictures below....especially the one with his legs sticking out the back. A couple of times, I thought that Ethan had fallen asleep because he was so still! So, if this is something that your kiddo's system craves, try making a sandwich! It's delicious!!!!