Wishful Thinking?

Standing on her tiny toothpick legs. Body of a 5.5 month old, calves/feet of a newborn!

We have our first follow up appointment since January next week. She has been in braces 23.5 hours a day for about four months. With spring/summer coming up I keep having wishful thinking thoughts that next week they will tell us she can graduate to naps/overnights only with the braces. But I'm not holding my breath. It would be really nice to have her be brace free during the day, or even just for two hours for pool parties. My son had his braces on 23.5 hours a day until 9 months old, so since baby sister seems to be a clone of her brother I anticipate we will be wearing braces for another three months. Sigh.

Her 3-5 toes are still curling under, in fact pinky#5 is almost gone!

Check out those chubby ankles! LOL! Roll Roll Roll!

New Milestone Report: Only thing I can think of is that she is getting very good and grabbing things and bringing them to her mouth. She will also reach up and hold onto things hanging on her play gym or on the carseat. Must be working on upper body this week! :)

Elimination Communication

We've been a little lazy the past 6 weeks because I had a knee surgery wasn't comfortable sitting/squatting to help her sit on the toilet. We still do it about once a day, but not nearly as diligent as we were in January. She also hasn't been waking up with dry diapers anymore, so I'm not sure what that is all about. We'll continue at our lazy pace because if anything it is keeping her familiar with the purpose of a toilet.

Roller Girl

Well, baby girl has done it! Rolling over at 5 months old. She has done it a handful of times, and I have yet to get a good one on tape. So... I cheated a little bit and put her on slippery material so it would be easier for her. But I promise she has done it on the carpet before. I just never have the camera ready when she does. D'oh!

Braces won't slow this baby down! :)

Dobbs Dynamic Bar

In more recent years there have been some advancements from the typical Mitchell Sandal and Ponseti bar that my children have both worn. Dr. Dobbs invented the Dobbs Dynamic bar that allows for more movement by having the shoes be on a hinged bar instead of a stationary one. Many parents swear by them and say they are a great benefit to have for allowing the baby to become mobile easier. There is a great video on their website to show the same child crawling with the Ponseti bar VS Dobbs bar.

I didn't even know they existed until a few months ago, and the option of having one was never given to us with our son. For that matter it has never been offered to us with our daughter either, I only found out about it online through support groups. I am on the fence about obtaining one for our daughter since they are not covered by our insurance and really the straight bar didn't hold my son back too much. He was crawling at 11 months and walking by 18 months. There is no guarantee he would have done this any earlier by having the mobility of the Dobbs bar.

I've heard out of pocket that the bar runs around $150, and that there is also an adapter you need to get if you are going to use the Mitchell Sandals. For now my daughter seems perfectly happy in the standard bar and shoes. She has no blisters, no trouble sleeping, and does not seem frustrated. We also have no trouble with compliance because we are very strict with ourselves and avoid the extended shoe break pity parties that I think many parents fall into by feeling sorry for their children and leaving the braces off for longer periods of time then they are supposed to do. You know who you are...

I'll keep the idea in my back pocket, but for now we are going to stick with the standard. Worked well for our son.... why mess with a good thing, right? :)

Five Month Update

Jokingly having her sit independently. Her tripod legs are useful in this ruse.

We're still plugging away at around 15 weeks in braces and haven't had any appointments since early January. We go in next at the beginning of April and I anticipate we'll get a "doing good" pat on the back from our doctor and then have another appointment three more months down the road. Our son wore his braces 23.5 hours a day until he was 9 months old, so I anticipate that our daughter will graduate along that same timeline. I guess you could say we're about halfway through the "braces all the time" phase. Time is just flying (eye roll and sarcasm). I still look at her sometimes and can't believe we are doing this all over again.

Milestones are still in the future. She gets close to being able to roll from back onto tummy, but just can't quite get enough momentum going to breech all the way over. She does do better practicing this with the bar and shoes on as she is just more comfortable that way. When the bar is off she just is not used to having her legs be two separate entities. She has started to be able to rotate around in bed and often ends up in a different direction than the one I laid her down on. Going to have to start thinking about how to contain her on the bed so she doesn't go over! We co-sleep and she is just on the mattress which is low to the ground. Not that falling from any height is good, but atleast we aren't talking about a 3-4 foot drop here.

We've started letting her have some time in the bouncy saucer exerciser. Without shoes on it does some good stretching just like the physical therapy we do with her doing her daily shoe break. We limit her to 10 minute segments twice a day (once without the shoes and once with) as those exercisers are hard on hips, and we were warned to be extra careful.

Here's a fun photo taken with baby's all born about the same time. Ella in purple is the oldest (born prematurely at 29 weeks), then 10 days later my baby girl was born, and then our man Chase was 3 weeks after that. Pretty so we won't be able to set the baby's like this as Lena just might get her whale tail brace going and crack her friends over the head. Look out folks!