Silas turns 1

I cannot I have a one-year old!  I think the world decided to move faster because this was the fastest year of my life.  He went from this little 6 pound baby that I was afraid I would break his fingers when I put his arm through his sleeper to a little guy with a pot-belly that stole my heart.  I didn’t think that I could love someone so much.

He is such a fun baby.  Silas enjoys dancing to any sort of music that he hears and sitting in my lap to read a book. He gets excited when he sees the dogs and waves to them any chance he can get.  The dogs have learned that Silas enjoys sharing his meals while sitting in his high-chair (this is a big help since I no longer have time to sweep my floor). Silas likes sleeping with a bear blanket and he hugs it while patting it when he gets sleepy.  He loves blueberries and cheese! He whispers. He says mama and will hug you when you ask.  He enjoys baths and balloons.  That’s my baby!

For his 12-month pictures, we did a smash cake photo shoot.  Even though Silas wasn’t crazy about eating the cake, the pictures turned out great.

Life without a helmet

Silas is adjusting to life without the protection of his helmet. He's starting to be more mobile and faster at it too!  Which means Josh and I are running around more trying to keep him from getting into things.  No more sitting him in one place and finishing getting ready for work in the morning.  The dogs aren't excited that they have something constantly grabbing at them and interrupting their naps on the couch with a quick poke and a giggle.  However, Coop and Dooley do enjoy the extra cheerios and bananas that find their way to the floor.

We have the baby gates up and the covers on the electrical outlets - the cabinet and drawer latches are purchased, but that's as far as we got with those. :)

Today while getting ready for work, Silas was crawling around and fell into the knob of the dresser. ouch!  Instant bright blue bruise and a goose egg on his forehead.  I didn't know bruises could be that color.  He's a pretty good trooper but wanted Dad not me for comfort. 

Its a whole new world out there for him now that he has to learn that he's not invincible.  No more crawling under and into any thing he wants while smashing his head into things along the way.

Now that he doesn't have a helmet rubbing his head all day, his hair finally has a chance to grow and not be rubbed off.  Silas now has a funky duck bill/mohawk that makes me smile.  Guess he got his daddy's cowlick.

Helmet is officially off!

Silas' helmet is officially off! Yea! His head isn't perfectly round, but its pretty dang close. I am very impressed by the results that we have seen with the helmet. We saw results within the first couple weeks.

Its amazing to look at the before pictures and to think what he would look like if we did not decide to get the helmet.  I am so happy with our decision. 

 

On the home stretch

It’s been over the 2-4 month range of Silas wearing his helmet.  We are now sitting at the 5 month mark and getting annoyed with helmet.  Silas has had the helmet on more than half his life – easy to do when you are only 8 ½ months old.  When I walk into daycare, I look for his blue camo helmet not for his pretty blue eyes or chubby cheeks. If he ever doesn’t have it on, I have a slight panic on “where is Silas” or “oh no, I’m a bad mom, I don’t recognize my own kid…..but seriously, which one is he”.

We have seen great results and we are almost there, but we miss cuddling with our baby. The helmet gets in the way – even Silas is getting stuck when he’s crawling around.  Maybe it’s a good thing he can’t fit in all the crevasses that he wants to get into since he is doing a pretty mean army crawl and pulling himself up on to everything. He’s gotten stuck crawling in under the coffee table, crawling around the couch, and under the kitchen table. 

Another perk is that the helmet has prevented many bruises and tears.  He thinks that he is invincible since nothing hurts his head.  He will be surprised when he hits his head the first time and it actually hurts.

We keep being told let’s see where we are in two weeks and two weeks later it’s the same thing.  The good news is that we have seen a big improvement on his head shape and it is our decision to keep him in the helmet as this point.  I guess I shouldn’t be complaining since it’s our decision.  He is now in the normal range (yea!!!); however, when I look at him, I still see he irregular shape and the “dent”.  I am sure if he had hair, it wouldn’t be noticeable.  I know his head won’t be perfect and no one’s is.  Since he has the helmet we may as well keep him in it till his head rounds out a little more. 

20% Fixed

Last week Silas and I went to the doctor to get his helmet adjusted and we found out his head is 20% better!  At Rebound, they measure his head from the left front to the back right and then the front right to the back left and take the ratio of the two.  Right now he's at a 12 and he was at a 18 before.  A perfect head would be zero, meaning the dimensions would be the same.  We can already see a difference in the shape of his head, but there is still a ways to go.

Silas doesn't seem to mind wearing the helmet but it still seems to bother him at night.  He wakes up more often now than he did before the helmet.

One thing we noticed is that when you take the helmet off, he is a much happier baby.  He starts smiling and then touches his head. He really likes when you rub his head - if he were a cat, I'd swear he'd start purring.  All in all, the helmet is doing its job and we have at least a month and a half left. 

One week down

Silas has been in his cranial cap for over a week now and seems to be adjusting to wearing it. We have had a couple hicups.
The morning that he wore it to daycare made me laugh. As soon as I sat him down to talk to the teacher in his room, another kid crawled over to him and started to play with the helmet. Guess its something new. At times I catch Silas reaching his arms up and playing with the velcro strap.

Earlier this week daycare called because Silas had a 101.6 fever.  Since he had the helmet on, they couldn't tell that he had a fever when they were holding him.  His face doesn't touch you when you're holding him.  It wasn't until they changed him that they realized he was warm.  Once they called me to let me know that I needed to come pick him up, they took the helmet off. 

By the time I got him into the doctor he hadn't been wearing the helmet for a couple hours.  His temperature was back down to 98. It seemed that the helmet was radiating his heat back and made his mild fever warmer.

He was doing really well sleeping with the helmet on, but the last couple nights he would get up more than every two hours and then would cry when I tried to put him back to sleep.  Silas has been a great baby up to this point and never really cries. I don't want to blame his fussiness on the helmet entirely because he is teething as well.  It could be one of those two things.  Since he was born, he has been a great sleeper.  We decided to try taking the helmet off and he slept great. We don't want to get in the habit of taking it off when he cries. As soon as the helmet came off he was happy and smiling. I hope its him teething that's making him unhappy and not the helmet.  This could be a long couple of months....

I imagine that the helmet is uncomfortable like when we all had braces.  It hurt for awhile after getting them adjusting, you'd take some Advil, and then be fine. I'm not really sure what I can do to help with the discomfort except hold him. I'm sure it does hurt if his head is pressing against one part already and shifting the plates around.  Like any mother, I don't like when my baby is in pain. 

Fixing His Melon

Silas received his helmet (cranial cap) today.  He did better than expected - much better than he did when he got the plaster mold done of his head. He fussed a little bit, but that was because he wanted a bottle.  The folks at Rebound are so nice and very knowledgeable. After our appointment today, I am very happy with our decision to go with them for Silas' helmet.

Silas with his helmet

Not knowing how people will react to Silas wearing a helmet is a little nerve racking.  Will they stare or point, or will people be supportive?!?!  I remember seeing kids wearing helmets before, but I didn't know what it was for and thought they had some disorder or had epilepsy.  Everyone keeps telling me that they know someone that had their kid in a helmet, but I have yet to find someone that has experienced this themselves.

Josh and I made the decision to correct his head because we knew that this is the perfect time to do it since the plates in his head are still pliable.  Silas will wear the helmet for at least two months, but it will probably be between 3 and 4 months.  It will depend on how quickly his head grows and how fast everything rounds out. When he is done with this whole process, he'll have a perfect head - even though I think he looks pretty good right now but that's b/c I'm his mom. :)  He won't remember any of this and he'll thank us (well maybe) for this someday.  At least I know that Josh and I are making the right decision. 

Silas will start out wearing the helmet for just a couple hours a day.  In a few days he'll be wearing it for 23 hours a day.

Interesting articles that helped me:
StarBand Helmets
StarBand Video
CranioCap® FAQs

The Plaster Mold

Well we had Silas’ helmet appointment yesterday afternoon.  They determined that his head shape isn’t severe enough to cause medical problems; however, his dimensions are bad enough that insurance will cover the helmet.  The guy did say that it was our choice and that it would be more for cosmetic reasons but we do live in a cosmetic society – which made me feel guilty for wanting him to have a round head since its to make him look better.  Josh and I knew we wanted one before we had the appointment anyways, so we went ahead with getting one.  Silas will be more confident when he’s older if he ever wants to buzz his hair. We’ll be glad we did it in the end. 

  

He screamed the entire time, didn’t help that he has an ear infection….here are some pictures so that you can see the process to get a plaster mold of his head.  It took about 20 minutes.

They first put a mesh ski-mask like hat on him. He didn’t like that at all. Notice his lip hanging out.

Then they put Silas in the bumbo -  he’s not fond of sitting in those these days (maybe it was b/c it was purple). Then they started putting the plaster o the side of his head.

Ones the sides were done, they put the plaster on the top of his head….still not a fan and still crying. He really started to move towards the end and got plaster all over his sleeper and his face.  Doesn’t he look like a Chinese warrior with all that plaster on his head?

Torticollis

At Silas' two-month appointment, I asked the pediatrician about the flat spot on the left side of his head. I didn't think it was really anything, and I asked about it at the very end of the appointment. I almost didn't want to bother the doctor, but I am glad I did!

That day we discovered that Silas has torticollis, which seems pretty common in babies. He favors looking to the right. Due to favoring the right side, Silas developed a flat spot on that side of his head. We've been doing physical therapy to help him increase his range of motion. We have seen so much improvement in the last couple weeks that he now favors looking to the left and not the right. Now we are fixing his mishapen head.

When Silas has four months, we brought him to Rebound to get fitted for a helmet. After getting measurements done on his head, we discovered that his head was not severe enough to cause medical issues (very thankful for that) but it was severe enough for insurance to cover getting a cranial cap.

Here are some different angles of his head before getting the cranial cap.