Hi Katfish and welcome to the forum. I found it a very similar way to you and spent many nights reading through posts. It made me feel a lot better and a little less alone in this whole experience. My daughter has had a very recent diagnosis as well. We have now had 5 days in a DB brace and I really feel today that it is starting to get easier. I know what you mean about loosing that intimacy the first day I felt like she was a totally different baby but now we have both settled in to things a bit better and after a massive shopping spree of new pram, car chair, bean bag and clothes I at least feel like I have places to put her and things to do with her.
it is a massive adjustment and very emotionally exhausting to begin with. My advice is to let those feelings out, not to bottle them up. People keep saying to me "Oh she'll grow out of it, it's not forever, it's for the best in the long run" and I agree and know all those things but that doesn't take away the fact that it is hard right now, that it is not how we picture our beautiful babies to be. As my mum put it "Yes, it's not like she has cancer, but it's also not just like she's teething. It is still hard and it is still a big deal. Don't let people disagard your feelings about it" Couldn't agree with her more.
So use this forum to vent, it makes me feel better! Things will get easier and somehow you will work out a new way of connecting her. I think the speed of which it all happens can put us in a spin to all of a sudden they have gone from soft cuddly baby, to baby in a harness or brace and that is difficult.
Mummy Naomi - thanks for your support, things are getting easier now. She has had an 1.5 hour nap (and is still asleep now) which is the best she has done since getting the brace on. So hopefully that means she is settling in to it all. Hope things are going OK for you. Chloe has also had some red marks but took her back to the RCH yesterday to the orthotics dptmt just to get her brace checked and he said it was OK for the moment, is just her super chubby thighs .
Katfish - welcome to the forum. DD1 was in a pavlik harness from 7wks so if you have any questions please feel free to ask me. I've had both my DD treated for hip dysplacia (DD1 in Pavlik Harness, DD2 in DB bar). So between the 2 of them I consider I know a bit about newborns with hip dyplasia.
Welcome to this forum. I'm glad that you found us. It certainly helped me to have other people is similar situations to share my feelings with. Don't ever be afraid to vent here either now, when your situation is quite new, or later when you are having a bad day. We have all been there (or somewhere similar).
I understand what you are saying about how your baby feels different. In your head you know that the treatment is for the best, that it is only for a short time, yada, yada, yada. In your heart, your baby feels very different now and you have to give yourself a chance to be sad about that.
If you have any questions just ask away. One small thing that I have found with the pavlik harness is that Aldi nappies worked better for us. The tabs are longer than Huggies and softer. Huggies cut into DD2 with her brace.
Thanks everyone for words of support. Today was our first complete day in the harness, and well, honestly, it was nothing short of miserable. Nat has always been a good sleeper and I think has just gone to sleep successfully now (7pm) for the first time since she woke up at 7am this morning. The harness straps were cutting into her neck and have started to break the skin, so on advice from a friend who is a physio and has worked with these harnesses, we have put a little singlet on underneath the harness to protect her neck. Has anyone needed to do this? Has anyone any other solutions to this. I have rung all the physio departments at the local hospitals and none are open again till Monday, so I have to somehow get through the weekend.
Hmm, I lied, she is crying again... OMG will she EVER sleep again....
Katfish - Sorry but didn't have that problem with DD1, she would be red behind her knees but that was it. Rest assured she will sleep again, within a couple of days she will settled down. Can I ask where you are? Who fitted the harness are you due to go back to have it checked next week? We had an app with our Orthatist 3-4 days after the inital fitting to ensure there was no rubbing and that we were coping.
I am near Dubbo in Central West NSW. An assistant in the Physio department at the Dubbo Base Hopital fitted it. I don't have an appointment with an Orthatist until Feb next year. I am supposed to go back next week to have it checked, but I don't think I will make it till Thursday, so I will head back Monday. Our friend the physio has just called back to see how we (me!!) are doing, by the sounds of what he said it may not really have been fitted as well as it should have. Why do these things happen over the weekend??
She is asleep now. Natalie also has reflux, so I topped up her reflux medicine and gave her another feed and she seems to have settled. I also wonder if it not two full on days of Drs appointments and travelling and no good day sleeps.
Our other daughter Jill is a terrible sleeper even at two, so I think the combination of two kids not sleeping is maybe catching up on me and that I am not coping very well. Does anyone ever have moments where all you want to say is 'I want my mummy' and go home??? I am having one of those moments...!
Katfish, your DD will adjust but it does take a while. My DD took a day or two to get back to her normal sleeping habits. When we first started we put a thinly folded towel under her feet. It wasn't very thick but just enough to support her feet a little bit.
When we got our first pavlik harness it was rough against DD's neck. The physio put a very soft gauze around the neckstrap of the brace and fastened it with tape. When DD went up in brace size the physio had a second hand brace which we borrowed. It was clean but didn't look great (the velcro tends to grab fabric fibres and then pill) but was so much softer.
Things slowly getting easier
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