Age of kids bolusing with MM pump bolus wizard

Sylvie,
Wow, where in Canada do you live that you have a full time health care person at school? maybe we should move there-lol:)
Actually I am amazed at how well he has caught on to using the pump. At home he does many of his own boluses- I tell him the number and clarify which number is first- I say 15 and he says a 5 and a 1? and I say close, it is a 1 and a 5. make sure the 1 is first). I was then watching to see the number but he is so darn fast I usually have to check the history after. (in fact a few times when i was bolusing him he complained i was going too slow-lol). This is convenient as if he wants something while I am in the middle of doing something he can take care of himself and I can double check after. Plus I am right there to say the number (and the bolus wizard helps and we are only entering carb info). At school i usually bolus for him as he is usually busy chatting to friends or digging into his lunch. I also would not be able to view the bolus history later if we talked by phone.
The other day I was at a parent advisory council meeting at the school while he was in gymnastics. they had given out skittles at the end of gymnastics so he came into the meeting to check if he could have them. I held them while he checked his sugar then i told him the carbs and he bolused himself and I gave him the skittles and he ate them. This was great because the school principal was able to see first hand how little help he actually needs. And that he is mostly self sufficient and that the pump is not rocket science. However, there is still the lack of funding as he doesn’t qualify for any EA time. I think if they can find the dollars to have a person there it won’t be an issue, but when you have 2 or 3 staff in an entire lunchroom (1/4 of the school I think is in that lunch room) or one teacher in the classroom at snack time…
I have thought of doing a set carb thing, but sometimes he is starving and eats lots and other days he only wants his sandwhich and drink. If he decides he isn’t hungry, I can’t guarentee someone will make sure he eats everything.

We live in Montreal, but don’t pack your boxes just yet!

My son goes to private school, because no public school I spoke to was willing to give/supervise insulin injections. There’s no way my boss would let me leave work every day like that.

Another simple thing that has helped us: For lunch, carbs are in bright red Tupperware and non-carbs in green ones. Nicolas knows to eat everything in the red containers and eat or leave what’s in the green ones. It’s also easy for the lunch staff to quickly check if he’s eaten all his carbs. It’s become less necessary now that he’s a bit older, but it was helpful when he was a little tyke in daycare.

Amazing how little kids catch on to the pump, isn’t it? You would think that seeing a 5 year old operate it so easily would be a pretty convincing argument for the school.

By the way, the Children’s Diabetes Foundation was so helpful when Nicolas was in daycare. One of their mandates is to help parents negotiate with schools. Sometimes, just a phone call from them will work wonders.

lol. We don’t even have a private school option here even if I could afford it. I am pretty lucky that I do have a flexible job (I work for a child/family resource centre so they are pretty child/family centered and understanding of family issues), but really if they were not i would have either had to quit my job or hire someone to go to the school for me (or trust him to do everything solo). I was sending free stuff and labelling it as free so the teacher would know too for one of his snacks, but he is too smart and even though he likes a lot of free stuff just wouldn’t eat it and after i threw out many cheese strings (and other things) I finally just stopped sending them. I think to him having something free is like his choice has been taken away. sometimes he chooses free things, but if he is told you can choose from thse certain things and they are all free he will say he doesn’t want something free.
I am sure seeing how easily he operated the pump will help us a lot, but i think there still needs to be some sort of funding to be able to have someone with him. I will look up infor on the Children’s Diabetes Foundation- maybe they can help point us in the right direction for funding.