When Nick’s in His Bed

How he sits in bed and how to set up his bed for sleeping at night.

Always keep the sides of the bed up when Nick is in it! He WILL fall out. Also, you need to make sure the latches on the side that keep the sides up are firmly in place. Sometimes they are not. To check, pull on the side of the bed both at the head of the bed and the foot of the bed.

Nick needs to be repositioned once in awhile. I use his bed for this quite often. Sometimes he likes to lay down and chill. His bed is an electric bed, and I keep his head elevated a bit so he doesn’t get reflux. Other times, he wants to sit up. Because his muscles are so tight, his legs will not go out straight. You need to prop up his legs for both laying down and sitting up. The only time I don’t prop up his legs is for sleeping. He sleeps on his side a lot and he’s not able to roll over if his legs are propped up.

I always keep a washable bed pad and a disposable chux under him for diaper leaks.

Here is the setup for propping up his legs and his trunk when he sits:

You’ll find the green wedge at the foot of his bed. There is a bag of diapers under the foot of his bed. He’ll scoot himself up when he sits up, but he’ll need some help to get himself completely upright/not slouching. You can also use pillows to help prop up his legs. They are either in his bed or on the rack next to his closet door. Just be sure to put the pillows behind the bed pad/chux to keep them from getting wet.

I will also put a pillow under his arm to provide some trunk support.

Sometimes I’ll use a weighted blanket over him. It helps stretch out his legs a bit (a gentle stretch). You’ll find the weighted blanket on the left side of the rack near his door.

Here is the setup for sleeping

Please note: Nick sleeps in a shirt and a diaper. No bottoms or socks. He’ll get too warm.

I keep the head of his bed elevated a bit, just enough to make it difficult for him to sit up and scoot back, and to help prevent reflux. When he sits and scoots back, he can no longer lay down and will need some help getting back down.

I suspend the blankets just above him. If you don’t, the blankets will get wet from diaper leaks. Just keep the blankets low enough to lay over him lightly, but high enough where they won’t wind up under him when he rolls over. I use 2 blankets as shown in the picture. I clamp the lower blanket to the bed on 3 sides so it doesn’t fall. Because the sides of his bed are padded, I clamp the blanket down lower. You can see where in the photo.

I put a small travel pillow with a waterproof pillow protector on it between his knees. This is on the rack next to his closet.

He needs 3 pillows around his head. The flattest one goes under his head. The other 2 go along the side All of the pillows have waterproof pillow protectors on them. The pillow on his side, closest to his diaper has 2 waterproof protectors on it.