If you’re caring for a child with a disability, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Many people around you will assume that you’ll be your child’s sole caretaker around the clock! But you don’t have to be, and in fact, it’s better if you aren’t. If it takes a village to raise a child, the same is even more true when the child has special needs. That’s where children’s respite care comes in.<\/p>
Respite care<\/a> is when someone else takes over caring for your child for a time — it can be as short as a few hours, or as long as a few weeks — freeing you to meet other obligations, restore your own inner resilience or even simply get a good night’s sleep. Your child needs you to be in top condition — rested, calm and in control. By meeting your own needs, you’ll be helping your child, too. This is particularly important for special needs parents<\/a>, due to the caregiving demands they often need to meet. <\/p> Respite care can be used on short notice to cover an emergency, like an illness or a crisis that calls you away from your child. But it can also be scheduled ahead of time on a regular basis, to give you a reliable breather from constant caretaking. If you’re used to doing all of your child’s care by yourself, using respite care can also help you get used to using professional caregivers — something that may become a larger part of your child’s life as they become older and more independent<\/a>.<\/p> There are many different options for respite care. Sometimes hiring a caregiver for just one task — the morning routine or bath time twice a week — can make everything a little easier for the whole family. You don’t have to go it alone.<\/p> Respite care is very flexible and can easily fit into your family’s schedule. Here are some of the kinds of care you might choose:<\/p> Whether you’re looking for care in a crisis or exploring options before you need it, there are many places to look for competent care. Here are some places to start:<\/p> Explore children’s respite care options for parents of children with special needs. Find support and regain your inner balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":975,"featured_media":19297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":true,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"2026-04-27T17:38:01.350Z","last_update":"2026-04-27","view_count":39885,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1098,1111],"member-type":[3],"vertical":[6,17,32],"platform":[2],"class_list":["post-3389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-disabled-kids","tag-respite-care-for-parents","member-type-seeker","vertical-children","vertical-child-care-advice","vertical-senior-care-options","platform-resources"],"acf":[],"created":"2013-10-20","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3389"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227469,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389\/revisions\/227469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3389"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=3389"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=3389"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=3389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Types of children’s respite care<\/h2>
Where to find respite care for a child with a disability<\/h2>
Still have questions? Learn more about special needs respite care<\/h2>