You Don’t Need a Babysitter to Take Care of Yourself
Taking care of yourself can be surprisingly complicated when you are a mom.
Before children, making an appointment might have meant looking at your calendar, finding an open time, and scheduling it. Once you have a baby or young children, that simple appointment can suddenly require coordinating nap schedules, feeding times, school pickup, work schedules, and childcare.
For many moms, the question is not whether they want to make time for chiropractic care. The question is much more practical: What am I supposed to do with the baby while I get adjusted?
At A. Butler Chiropractic & Therapeutic Massage, our answer is simple. Bring them with you.
We are a family chiropractic office, and part of being a family office means understanding that your children are part of your everyday life. You should not have to wait until you can arrange a babysitter before you are able to take care of your own body.
A Chiropractic Office Designed With Real Families in Mind
Our office cares for people through many different stages of life. We see pregnant moms, postpartum moms, babies, children, parents, grandparents, and everyone in between.
Because of that, having children in the office is normal for us.
If your baby is comfortable in a car seat or stroller, you can bring it into the office and keep your little one close while you are being adjusted. We have room to work around the things that naturally come along with babies, including diaper bags, carriers, blankets, bottles, and everything else that somehow becomes necessary for even a short trip out of the house.
Sometimes we even find new uses for things already in our office. The pregnancy pillow that helps expecting moms comfortably lie on the table can also make a convenient supervised spot for a baby to rest nearby while Mom receives care.
The goal is simply to make your appointment easier to manage.
What If the Baby Does Not Cooperate?
Of course, babies do not always follow the schedule we have planned for them.
Your baby may be perfectly content when you arrive and decide five minutes later that being held is suddenly the only acceptable option. Your toddler may become curious about everything in the room. Someone may need a snack, a toy, or a little extra attention.
That is okay.
We are accustomed to working around families. When someone on our team has an available set of hands, we are often happy to help entertain or hold a little one for a few minutes while you finish your adjustment.
We are not a childcare facility, and parents remain responsible for their children during appointments, but we also do not expect children to sit silently and behave like tiny adults.
Babies cry. Toddlers explore. Kids ask questions.
None of that makes them unwelcome.
Older Children Are Welcome Too
The childcare dilemma does not disappear once your baby gets older.
There are school breaks, summer vacations, teacher in-service days, sick-day schedule changes, and those weeks when everyone's calendar seems to collide at once.
If your children need to come along to your chiropractic appointment, bring them.
One of the things we enjoy about being a family chiropractic office in the Butler, PA area is getting to know entire families over time. We may first meet someone during pregnancy and later see her coming into the office with the baby we spent months talking about. As families grow, children become familiar faces around the office too.
That continuity is part of what makes a family practice feel different.
Why Moms Often Put Their Own Care Last
Most moms are very good at making sure everyone else receives the care they need.
If a child needs a doctor's appointment, it gets scheduled. If someone needs to get to practice, school, therapy, or another activity, Mom usually finds a way to make it happen.
Our own appointments can be easier to postpone.
Sometimes it is because the schedule is already full. Sometimes it is because arranging childcare feels like more work than the appointment itself. Sometimes we simply convince ourselves that the discomfort can wait.
The problem is that motherhood can also be physically demanding.
Pregnancy changes the way your body carries weight and moves. After delivery, your body continues adapting while you begin lifting, feeding, carrying, rocking, and caring for a growing baby.
You may spend long periods looking down while feeding your baby. You may carry a car seat on the same side repeatedly. As your child gets older, you may find yourself carrying a toddler on one hip while trying to accomplish three other things at the same time.
Those everyday demands can contribute to tension and discomfort through the neck, shoulders, back, hips, and other areas.
This is one reason some women choose chiropractic care during pregnancy and continue with postpartum chiropractic care afterward. The challenge is often finding a way to make that care fit into an already full life.
We want to remove at least one obstacle.
Taking Care of Yourself Does Not Have to Be Complicated
Self-care is often presented as something that requires a large block of uninterrupted time.
For a busy parent, that may not be realistic.
Taking care of yourself can simply mean keeping an appointment you have been putting off. It can mean spending a little time addressing the back discomfort that keeps showing up when you pick up your toddler or the neck tension that has been bothering you after weeks of feeding and carrying a baby.
Your appointment does not need to happen in perfect circumstances to be worthwhile.
If your baby naps in the stroller beside you while you get adjusted, that works.
If your toddler comes along because childcare fell through, we can work with that too.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is making your own care a little easier to fit into the life you already have.
What Being a Family Chiropractic Office Means to Us
Being a family chiropractic office is about more than simply treating different age groups.
It is about creating an environment where families feel comfortable.
It means understanding that new parents may need extra time to get settled. It means recognizing that appointments sometimes have to happen around nap schedules, school schedules, and the unpredictability that comes with raising children.
It also means remembering that the person on the chiropractic table has an entire life outside of the office.
At A. Butler Chiropractic & Therapeutic Massage, we serve families from Lyndora, Butler, and surrounding Butler County communities. We want our office to be a place where parents can receive care without feeling like they first need to reorganize their entire household.
For some families, simply knowing that children are welcome can make the difference between continuing to postpone an appointment and finally scheduling one.
Can You Bring Your Baby to a Chiropractic Appointment?
At our office, yes.
Babies can stay nearby in their car seat or stroller while you receive chiropractic care. If you have questions about bringing your children to an appointment, you are always welcome to call the office beforehand.
We would much rather help you figure out how to make the visit work than have childcare be the reason you continue putting off care you have been wanting.
Taking Care of the Person Who Takes Care of Everyone Else
There will probably never be a week when everything is completely caught up.
There will always be another load of laundry, another school activity, another meal to figure out, and another person who needs something from you.
Your own care does not have to wait until all of those things disappear.
Being a parent and taking care of yourself are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes they simply happen at the same time.
So if the question keeping you from scheduling has been, “What am I going to do with the baby?” you may not need to solve that problem at all.
Bring the baby.
Bring the stroller or car seat.
Bring your older children if they need to come too.
We will work with real life.
To schedule chiropractic care at A. Butler Chiropractic & Therapeutic Massage, call 724-822-1828 or book your appointment online.