Half Term Holiday Camp for Diabetic kids

[James Ross]

Evening all,

Hoping to get some advice on parenting that is relevant to diabetes. I am type 1 as is my eldest son who has just turned 4 and started school. NHS have been great with training up teachers to look after him so no issues there.

We never before considered that annual holidays for working parents come nowhere near to what is required to look after kids during school holidays. Unlike when I was a kid, my sons grandparents are still working and my wife and I have no local support to look after my son during the half term. I know all parents have this issue but with a diabetic kid it is a little different in that I can't just stick a 4 year old in any old holiday camp. People need to be trained to look after him and by the time that would be done the holiday would likely be over! We are stuck with two options:

1 - That my wife stops work to look after Nathan during the holidays.
2 - We try to find a holiday camp provider that caters to and is trained to look after children with diabetes.

Holding out hope that someone on here could point me in the right direction as my wife really doesn't want to stop work and we cant be the only people that have had this issue. Very appreciative of any advice anyone could give. Thanks.

James,

 

[Thebearcametoo]

Talk to the places you would usually use and talk to the school to see if they have suggestions for places that can cope. My friend used a local child minder (school age children don’t count in the same ratio of adult to children so lots of child minders are happy to take older kids in the holidays) who had a kid under her care who was diabetic. Lots of childcare settings/holiday clubs will already have some experience of diabetes.

If you can’s find somewhere already set up then maybe line somewhere up that is willing to do a bit of training then they’ll have your business each holiday and will be quids in. If one of you is available over the phone too then that helps give a layer of security. Another friend would go and do the lunchtime injection & carb counting so that took some of the pressure off. There are ways to deal with it but yes it adds another layer of difficulty.

Depending on what your wife and your work is like taking staggered holidays so one of you is available while the other works, parental leave or using TOIL can help bridge the gap too. Holiday childcare is a huge juggle for working parents and it can feel daunting.

I hope you can find some solutions.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Diabetes UK is starting to run ‘family weekender’ events again, but those are more geared around confidence building rather than holiday childcare I think.

 

[AndBreathe]

You could ask his diabetes team how other parents deal with this situation. Do you know of any other child T1s in your area. Hopefully your team could put you in touch with peer support

In my area there are excellent activities for T1 kids, involving residential camps in the summer, but those aren’t each school break or even for the duration of a break, but they do also have activities like sporting activities or trips out. Speaking to parents, they get as much out of the parent to parent interactions as the kids do from whatever activities they are doing. These activities are have departmental support, but parent/volunteers are the glue holding them together.

I can only imagine this will ease, a bit, as he gets older and becomes more independent, but that doesn’t help now.