These sisters are 8 Months old!!
Mandy
This girl is going to crawl at any time! I'm waiting!
She is eating her finger foods really well. Here was one of her meals:
She is such a big girl! I weighed her yesterday and she was 18 lbs 12 ounces
She will be getting a helmet in a few weeks....more on that below.
She is attached to me at the hip! Some days its hard to do anything because she wants me to hold her all the time. This is difficult when there are 2 babies.....luckly Emily isn't wanting me to hold her 24/7 otherwise I don't know what I would do.
She goes to bed between 5:30/6:00. I can't seem to make the bedtime later because she is beat by then. She is up at 5:00/5:30 am. Blech. BLECH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I refuse to get her up until 5:30. It sucks but I am more of a morning person than a night person so its not totally horrible, its just 6:00 would be so much better, just 30 more min!!!!!! Its just even SOUNDS better!!!!
We weaned her from her last middle of the night feeding. If she wakes up she gets water only. I do think she is having separation anxiety from me at night....she wants me to hold her and little girl that is not happening so we have had to cry it out a few times.
Emily
She weighs in at 14 lbs; 1 ounce
No interest in finger foods. Not much appetite for her purees either, she eats a few spoonfuls and then she is done.
Does not try to crawl or get on her knees...content to just sit but she does get frustrated if a toy is out of reach and she lets me know it.
The past few days she has started to be more vocal. Her whole body gets rigid, she straightens her arms and schreeces....its pretty darn funny.
I am still letting her have a middle of the night feeding because of her size. Not sure when I will try to wean her, I'll talk to my pedi about it. She goes to bed between 6:00/6:30 and wakes up with the birds also. 5:30!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cassie
Little girl.....just because your sisters get up at 5:30 doesn't mean you have too. BUT she does. She used to sleep till 7:00 but now she wants to get up with her sisters. Sigh.....some day I will sleep in.
Helmet
After our visit at Children's Hospital we had decided to wait and see with Mandy for a helmet. Well, we decided it wasn't getting better so we would helmet her. We went last week to Cranial Tech, I had heard great things about the women there. I DID NOT like her. Maybe she was just having a bad day but I totally felt attacked by her. She was on my case saying we are late in the game with a helmet and Mandy has torticollis that should have been taken care of at 2 months. I TOOK HER TO HER PEDI AT THAT AGE AND HE SAID SHE DID NOT HAVE TORICOLLIS!!!!
After her tearing into me I asked her if she was saying doing a helmet right now would yield no results and she said "No, you will see visible results". Then lady.....take a chill pill!!!!!!! What the heck. I went on to their website afterwards and it says they treat kids up to 18 months old and I read stories from other parents who treated at even a later age than Mandy and had great results.
I was just not happy with how she went about things. I was ready to cry at one point and that is so not like me. She made me feel like I was a bad Mom. After all I went thru with Cassie's medical issues, for this lady to make me feel like I was a horrible Mom because of a flat spot on the head that will be corrected and a tight neck muscle really ticked me off. I know she is passionate about her work but that was uncalled for.
We go next Wednesday for the casting and a week later she gets fitted with it. I already orded her decals for the helmet today. I'm not worried about her adjusting to the helmet....from everything I have read babies don't mind them at all and Mandy is pretty easy going.
I'm a lurker and love your blog! I just have to ask if you took Mandy to Cranial Tech in Mequon? I was reading your description and I was like "oh wow! This is an exact description of my experience!" But I had no idea you were from Wisconsin until I looked for it in you about me section. Anyway, If it is Mequon I'd love to email you about the terrible experience i had with my son and the casting experience and the doctor in general. If you aren't interested that's really ok too. I really really pray everything works out great with it! YOU ARE A GREAT MOM!
ReplyDeleteYes, we are going to Cranial Tech in Mequon. Small world!! I would be very interested to know about your experience!!!
DeleteI tried replying earlier but wasn't sure if it worked so if you got this twice I apologize.
Melissa
So first before I rant, I wanted to say that at the end of it we were very happy with the results we got with my son’s head shape and I am SO glad we decided to do it. We took him there from 4.5 months old and he was done in 8 weeks (his head grew quickly and he luckily did not need a second band). Ok with that said, I thought Karen Kestel was one of the most unprofessional therapists I’ve ever met or heard of. She has no business working with children at all. She was rude at every visit, but this is the most memorable and it will give you a good picture: When I took in my son for his casting, she did a long photo session before hand to document the “before” shape of his head. Well, my son did not enjoy having his body and head pushed in different directions, which I was was prepared for. He wasn’t in pain or anything, it was just a challenge to get his head positioned just right for all the various poses she wanted. Rather than handling my crying baby like a professional, she got very snippy with me and my mom, telling us to make him be quiet and move him this way and that and she eventually said and I quote “What is wrong with him!?!” Um… cue tears! He is a baby! He cries! Plus I was a new insecure mom who had never heard of “helmets” before.
DeleteThen as you can imagine, the casting session was awful. The casting covers their entire head and face. He cried so hard that he eventually just kind of passed out/fell asleep from exhaustion. At the end the cast gets kind of cracked and pulled off, for lack of a better description, and since my son was asleep, there was not any opposing pressure for it. So his head was limp without any opposition and she just kept yanking and pulling. My mom and I start screaming simultaneously because we thought his neck was about to break. I truly think this only happened because he was not awake, but it was not safe none-the less.
So if you’re looking for my advice here’s what I‘d say and what I would do if I could do it all over again: If at all possible cancel the casting session and make the drive to Chicago to have the laser session done at that Cranial Clinic. Even without the weird neck thing that happened to my son, the casting is just very, very hard do. Then just know that the follow-up sessions where Karen adjusts the bands are brief so just ignore all demeaning comments and take her skill for what it’s worth. I just wanted you to know that you have not done anything wrong and you are an amazing mother. Do not let her comments get to you. I thought she just treated me like this and I’m SO sad to hear this is not the case. I think you’ll be glad you did it, but I wish there was another provider in this area for this service.
Thank you so much for your advice! I have cancelled the cast and we are doing the scan. Like you said I was shocked at how rude Karen was, I had heard such great things.
DeleteThanks again!!! I really appreciate it
I have recently found your blog and LOVE it!! I have 6 month old boy/girls twins. My little Macy is Tiny like Emily and will not eat. Jack wants to eat everything. He also has Torticollis and we are contemplating a helmet for him. Where is Mandy's flat spot? Is it on the back or on the side?
ReplyDeleteI am also a lurker and my daughter is 8 months too! She was born on the 22nd of June. She also had a DOC Band. I read the whole comment above and I am so sorry you both had that experience. I agree that I would cancel that appointment and see if you can make the trip to Chicago. We live in Chicago and went to the Lombard office. It was wonderful. I was so curious when you mentioned casting because I only know the way we had it done. Ours was a series of 3D digital pictures and was so, so easy. I had a friend who had gone through a band with her daughter so I noticed my daughter's right away. Our insurance didn't pay for ANY of it but that meant we got to have her in it early. She wore it from 3.5 months until she was 5 months. Just 6 weeks since she was so young. I blogged about our experience so feel free to peek around. You can email me any questions too at leslie.clark@hotmail.com.
ReplyDeleteHere is the first blog post I did about it.
http://www.theclarkcourierlive.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html
Good luck with everything!
Leslie
Thank you so much! I have cancelled the casting and we are now having the scan in Skokie. I feel so much better about it.
DeleteI just posted above but I wanted to link the other post about her fitting too. It's more informative. http://www.theclarkcourierlive.blogspot.com/2012/10/cranialtech-evaluation.html
ReplyDelete