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Permalink Reply by Aimee on February 24, 2011 at 1:00pm

My daughter was 4 when she went on a pump. I was worried that she would try to play with the pump or constantly have issues with pulling the site out. I was glad to have a saline trial; the hospital gave us a loaner pump filed with saline so we could see how she would do wearing it around and getting her site changed. We still had to give her shots during the trial, but it gave me piece of mind. The saline trial was enough to prove to me that she could so it.

It is very difficult to actually pull out a site, but my child is very active and did pull it out several times by getting it caught on things. I think she learned to be a little more careful because this has not happened for over a year now (she is now 6). I was also surprised that she left the pump alone, even at 4 years old. We put it in a pouch at all times, so this helped. She is a bit older than your child, but I have known other children that have done fine as well. The pump she uses has a lock feature (if you lock it when you are not programming it, no changes will be made even if bottons are pushed) .. we used it at first, but realized pretty quickly that it wasn't necessary.

Permalink Reply by DWizard on February 25, 2011 at 11:59am

We went on the Medtronic pump 6 months after diagnosis, at 1,6 years old. I had the same concern-petrified that he would press the buttons and give himself too much insulin. He is 5 now and for over 4 years we had 1 day off the pump when it had to be exchanged. it was not a good day, my son did not like the injections at all and it was very hard for us because the pump gives immense freedom in eating whatever whenever. You probably know how hard it is to keep a toddler on a feeding schedule so having a pump helped a lot. I dont see any reasons at all why a small child shouldn't be put on a pump, Medtronic's one has a block feature that allows you to lock the buttons so a child can't give himself insulin, we used to use a lot, don't have to anymore.
We started with Sure-T infusion sets, where the tiny needle stays in. it has two thingies with tape, one is actuall infusion with a needle and the other one that sticks to the skin but can be disconnected for bathing. It only got pulled out a couple of times, to prevent that I used a small piece of tape over the part with needle.
Whatever pump you decide to try will make a difference in D management IMHO, Good luck.

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