Our Quest for a Round Head

Yesterday I took Paxton in for evaluation of his head shape.  He has brachycephaly, or flat head syndrome.  This is pretty common now since kids are put to sleep on their backs to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).  Hey, flat head is better than death!  The treatment can be a helmet to help reshape the head, but it looks like that's not recommended by the clinic we went to until 6 months (he is 4.5 mo).  In the meantime, he gave me a whole bunch of impractical advice such as putting him on his stomach to sleep and sit and watch him during the nap at first.  Um yea, not really an option as I have a two year old (which he didn't ask about before giving these great tips).  And when I brought up that he will not relax on his stomach and lay his head down, rather he only cries harder and harder, his response...that I'm not letting him cry long enough (he did not ask how long I let him cry) and that Pax would eventually lay his head down and fall asleep.  No thank you!  I'd rather not upset my child into exhaustion to have him plop his head face first into a mattress and fall asleep.  I'm pretty positive that this guy doesn't have kids or that if he does he had very little to do with raising them.  He said some other pretty ridiculous things and didn't ask anything about what we've already done.  He had no idea he was talking to a healthcare professional married to another healthcare professional and that I could tell what a poor job he was doing. .

So I'm upping our already in place efforts to keep him off the back of his head.  My goal is very little use of the bouncer and swing, and trying to limit the carseat as much as practical.  When he can roll both ways more proficiently, he will naturally start sleeping on his stomach.  And if not, that would be the appropriate time to encourage him to do so.  I use baby carriers often.  We got a Bumbo, which is a special chair that helps him sit before he can actually sit on his own.  So far, Pax will sit in it for a little bit, but Ev spends most of the day plopping in and out of it and crawling around with it stuck to his butt.  He's obsessed with it.

My back feels like it's about to break from carrying Pax all day.  Paxton, when you're old enough to read this, and if you have a nicely shaped head, know that massages would be good Mother's Day presents from you.  And while I'm at it, Everett, it's pretty hard lifting your 30 lb self into and out of the car, crib, bathtub, etc.  So you can buy me massages too.  ;)