Flat head treatment?

They have certain pillows for babies with flat heads. I don’t think you can use it at night but during the day when baby is awake in the crib or anywhere else you can use it

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Also there are breathable pillows in cases you are worried

I used that pillow and it did help a little. It’s cute and little and I wasn’t worried about him being suffocated by it, because I always put him on his back to sleep.

The boppy noggin nest is amazing. My son had a flat spot on the back of his head and we bought the noggin nest and have been using it in his swing, carseat, and rock n play. Along with lots of tummy time his flat spot is almost completely gone.

Hi! So I’m speaking from experience. You might want to have your child evaluated by a physical therapist. My son did the same thing and the towel thing didn’t work. His whole right side in the back was flat. It turned out he had torticollis (tight muscles) on one side. He had PT for six months and it helped him so much. His flat spot got better, but I wanted it perfect so he had a helmet for 2 months and you would never even know he needed either of those things. So yeah.. maybe call a PT and have them evaluate your baby. It can’t hurt :) hope I helped a little!

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Thanks so much. I’m definitely going to look into physical therapy for him. It seems to have worked for a lot of others too!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask! My son did it for 6 months :)

My baby has this too, has a bit of neck tension hence his preference to sleep with neck on the less tense side. He's getting chiropractic treatment but I'd also recommend physio. Also if you put something under her mattress on the side that she faces (for example the left side), gravity might make her turn her head the other way 😊

I had this problem with my son and I can tell you that rolling something under the shoulders isn’t really going to help I know from experience. My son would end up going to the side he liked. It wasn’t hazardous just didn’t work for him. I know amazon has some pillows to help with this might try that. Plus we did physical therapy too but ended up having to put him in a helmet. I’d talk to your doctor more about this.Especially since your baby is young and can be corrected fast! I learned this the hard way and don’t want you to go through it too

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Thank you. We’re going to bring up the idea of PT with our doctor at his 4 mo appt. It seems that has helped for a lot of people. :)

Great we did pt at 4 months too hope it helps! Can tell you they will probably do a lot of tummy time with your little one. That’s what they did with mine and he hated it 😢 I felt so bad but was also a first time mom

We had the same problem with our son, but we never did pt or chiropractor. I just made some adjustments like, I noticed that the way I always placed him on the changing table had him turning his head on the flat side because he wanted to look at me. So I started turning him the other way where he would have to turn his head the other way to look at me. My pediatrician also said to do some simple things like when he is laying on his back (on the floor or on the changing table) pick his head up and gently turn it to both sides. My pediatrician said that it wasn’t serious enough yet for pt so we did those things first and it worked great!

Some chiropractors specialize in cranials and that can help as well. They don’t crack and pop with the babies, it’s more of an infant massage. Good luck, mama!

My son wore a helmet for a few months... it did help change the shape of his head and fix the flatness in the back. I think he got a flat head not only from sleeping on his back mostly, but because he DREADED tummy time so it was really difficult to keep up with; we tried our best. Also, we let him nap in a rock-n-play and it was super narrow... i feel like it definitely contributed to the flatness. Just a thought for other mamas who use those too.

My little girls favours her left side more, when she sleeps at night that's the way she will have her head all night, health visitor says it's abit flat that side and also said about putting like a vest r muslin, anything soft under that side to encourage her to turn her neck abit more, she says only do this when u r with her, as n when u both aren't going to sleep, encourage her to do tummy time to strengthen her neck muscles and have her lie n a way that will encourage her to turn her head when she hears your voice so shes looking at u,, alternate feeding sides, lie her on her side n a slight tilt so her head will naturally move to that side, it's hard though at times because she dosent like anything under head, she also dosent like lying on her tummy unless it's on my chest, I'm hoping though when health visitor comes back she will have noticed a difference n how much she moves her neck

We are going to a physical therapist for my little guy she told us to do this too but the blanket only works for a bit for my little guy so I just ordered a pillow for it off of amazon hoping it will help. ( Babymoov Lovenest | Patented Pillow For Baby and Infant Head Support & Flat Head Syndrome Prevention (PICK YOUR COLOR) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSFV4R6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_UfRsCbZC5QD8P )you can also try a wedge pillow instead of a blanket. She isn’t too concerned about torticollis since he has good range moment but since his head is a little flat we are going once a week. We do lots of tummy time and during play time I focus on the side he doesn’t sleep on to try and enable him to use it more. I get at night it is very hard to stop them from using their favorite side. It takes my little guy longer to fall asleep and he fights me on how I try to position him. I will have the pillow on Monday I can tell you how he does with it if you’d like. Just let me know!

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He is 8 weeks

Yeah that would be great if you let me know how it goes. How old is your baby? It seems like most of these pillows can only be used until they’re 4 months old.

You’d be so surprised at how many babies have this since they have to sleep on their back naturally they favor a side. My son has this too. PT was the best thing for him, repositioning didn’t work for us at least. He still ended up with the helmet which definitely wasn’t at bad as I thought and he looked freakin adorable 💕

We’ve had the same issue with our twins. I’ve been using boppy pillows when they nap or are awake during the day and lay them on their bad side. I also try to feed them this way since it’s similar to breastfeeding. That way I can feed them while they’re laying on the boppy pillow with a bottle and they’re distracted by eating and don’t try to fight laying on the other side of their head. We also got some bouncy chair from target to sit them up in. This helps because they generally look straight forward or to both sides do they aren’t just sitting on one side. We also have been waiting to put them in their cribs until they’re in a deep sleep and lay them on the other side of their heads and that generally works. One baby we are having more trouble with, but we can already see a difference in the other twin.

Trydfvuvug

Theres a hat called a tortle to prevent and fix flat head syndrome

Our ped told us to put a wedge under her sheet and it worked big time. Her pediatrician was happy at the 4 month appointment and we have her 6 month next week. Worth a try. It helped her head lay and sort of fall towards the wrong side.

Chiropractor!

There are sleep wedges you can get through pedestrians offices that are completely safe for baby to have in the crib while sleeping. The other option is a shaping helmet!!! They’re awesome and work perfectly to reshape a flat head!

Our son has been going through the same thing. He will be 4 months on Friday. He has been going to PT for torticollis for about 2 months now. It has helped tremendously with his head silt but while being treated for this he did develop flatness on one side of the back of his head, Which has got be concerned because the flatness has not improved. I will be bringing it up at his 4 month checkup next week. I have a feeling he will have to end up wearing a helmet.

Does anyone know if the advice differs in the UK? I’ve been told that it will improve without treatment after 5 months when baby can sit etc but my daughter is now 9 months and although repositioning her at night has made it less extreme, there is still an obvious flatness. Really starting to worry now!

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Ask for a specialist. The skull only hardens as it gets older. The only thing that makes the skull grow is the brain growing. That’s what they told me.

Agree on checking if your baby has torticollis, in which case you can see a pediatric physical therapist to help give some exercises to increase baby’s range of mobility.

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Exactly the same Happened with my little Lady. PT for 2 months and flat spot was gone by 6 months. Get a diagnosis from your ped of torticollis and get PT!

Absolutely definitely yes this! My kiddo had torticollis, diagnosed at 3mo, started Physical therapy at 4mo, flat head was gone by 6mo! Pt has helped her in so many more ways than just turning her neck, too - it helped me watch for future "unevenness" that can be associated with torticollis (using left hand more than right hand, rolling only to the left and not the right, etc) and correcting them as well as preventing more in the future! My little girl, currently 9 months of age, is now around the 11mo mark as far as her physical abilities go and I am confident it's because of her physical therapy! We didnt even need the helmet because we fixed her head so quickly! I absolutely absolutely believe in the efficacy of pt!

My son who is now 13 had a super flat head he never moved when he slept and I didn’t know to move his head around. We went to a place in Palo Alto, CA and they scanned his head and carved out a helmet out of foam. Worked amazingly well he has a perfectly round head now, only took three months but they said they’d never seen anyone’s head grow so fast. It was supposed to take 6months I think. Similar to helmets above. I felt like a failure and was embarrassed but my husband explained why should we be embarrassed were fixing the issue. We’re handing it like parents are supposed to handle things. He’s perfect now and was perfect then, just had a super flat head. 🤣

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How old was your baby when you got the helmet?

I went to my doc for this and then a pead and they said they won’t even offer the helmet anymore :/ we’re in a fairly rural area but its frustrating that they wouldn’t try to help fix it

Yes. He likely has torticollis, like my girl did. She was in physical therapy for about 8 months and her head is perfectly normal, youd never know she had plagiocephaly before, and her neck has equal range of motion both sides now!

My daughter had a flat spot due to being stuck under my rib in uterine. We treated it with a DocBand! Talk to your babies pediatrician about one. It has helped soooo much, my baby had 2 helmets for her treatment & it’s a night/day difference.

My son had torticollis and then developed a flat spot. Hes been in his helmet a little over a month now. We get him measured again this week to get his new numbers.

We noticed a bit of a flat spot on one side of my guys head around 4 months, and were referred by our ped to a helmet company. They did a photo scan and said he had mild to moderate plagiocephaly and that he needed a helmet, which would cost about 2000 dollars. Insurance does not cover this because it's considered cosmetic. So I looked to see if I could find any research that supported use of the helmets. I only found one legitimate study and it showed that an equal amount of babies show improvement whether or not they get the helmet. Babies brains grow so rapidly that sometimes their head shape just improves on their own.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4294410/

Solution! https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=179319420249265&id=100045136248414

I follow a RN on Instagram who gives a ton of new baby advice and specializes in postpartum and infant care. She’s amazing- name is Karrie Locher. She covered this topic one day and said that you should put baby in the crib with their head facing the opposite way every night. She basically said this comes down to babies looking at the door when they sleep or a certain direction so changing each night keeps the head from getting flat. I’m not sure if this applies to your case but worth a try!

I work for Orthotics and we also recommend a foam noodles inside a shirt to reposition. Some insurances request "conservative treatment " before baby is eligible for a helmet. Conservative treatment is either reposition at home for 2 months "recorded by pediatrician "or PT sessions recorded. We usually start helmet therapy around 5 months? Anything before that we don't recommend just yet. I hope this helps

My little boy has the same. We currently seeing an osteopath to help correct. During the night we use the camera to help change his head direction. During tummy time all the toys to the opposite side to encourage the neck rotation. They say it takes time but take a picture and observe ever so often if there’s an improvement( maybe?)

Hey my son only sleeps on one side and has a flat head he's having physiotherapy for it to help lose the muscles would great to chat to you more x