Hi I am sorry to hear that your dd has hip problems. Its good that she is picked up so early as it is much easier and quicker to treat. My DD1 was in a Pavlik Harness from 5 weeks old til 8 months old. I know that sounds a long time, but when I look back on it the first 12 or so weeks was full time, then it came off for 20 minutes a day for 6 weeks and the rest was at night time only. She was picked up at birth, she only had about 27% coverage, an audable clunk and her leg creases were not even.
We went through the hospital she was born at (monash clayton) as they had an orthopaedic outpatient clinic there. Being in camberwell you may be referred to your nearest big hospital or even the childrens. I know at my hospital the first harness was free but she needed 2 more sizes and they were $100 each. The physio sessions also were free. I guess it depends on where its getting done. the out patients was free to where we saw the specialist...it was bulk billed.
For clothes, I stuck to bonds wondersuits as they were stretchy and being winter its perfect fo wondersuits. Anything stretchy is good. I couldnt put jeans on DD1 as it pulled the harness in. You can use cloth, we used it for a while but dh found it too hard, so we switched to sposies. Just got to be carefull not to get it wet coz if you cant take it off its hard to get dry when they are waring it. We used a hair dryer to dry it with a towel to pretect their skin.
As for the sling, I found it a bit hard, but you can give it a go.... I didnt use any carriers coz I was too scared to stuff her hips up. Make sure she gets plenty of tummy time or is propped on a pillow or bean bag as my dd got a really flat head from laying on her back all the time.
I hope that answers some of your questions. Just to let you know, as devistating as it is now, it will be fixed and my dd practically crawled soon after she got it off, and she was walking by the time she was 12 months. Shes now a healthy and very active 2 year old.
best wishes
Melissa
Ps...if you look at my photos on the link in my signature, you can see a few pics of Olivia in her harness
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