16. Crawling! Watch out world

June 18 2014

Check this out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccFDUSN8-CI

Otto is moving all around the floor! It’s awesome to see. We need to get the baby gate up, stat!
Today was the first day that he didn’t have a fever in a while which is great. He still has a runny snotty nose so we hope that goes away soon.
He’s got chompers coming in so he’s teething pretty badly right now which means mom isn’t getting a whole lot of sleep.
His grandma has been watching him during the day since he hasn’t gone back to daycare yet. We would be in real trouble if we didn’t have the amazing help of family to help watch our guy when he’s not feeling too great. Even still we look forward to being back to our routine.

His new mobility is great but we were just reminded that we need to continue to exercise caution and limitation when it comes to handling him. The strict rules are:

1) His back needs support. Flat support- or in a reclined position. This means his highchair is a recliner. He isn’t allowed in umbrella strollers or cling/wrap/front carriers. His fancy Ergo carrier hasn’t really seen the light of day. His bumbo is dusty. Baby bouncers or vibration seats- no-can-do! Even his car seat isn’t the absolute best but we made due with modifications. I used to fantasize about a lay down car seat.

2) He should not be propped or forced into a sitting position- until he can sit up on his own and/or stand up/walk from a laying down position, we’re not supposed to promote positioning his body in these ways.
This includes while holding him, no resting his bum on our arms or having him sit on our laps.

3) His noggin is large and sits on a spine that is narrower than the typical kid. This paired with lower muscle tone we still must provide him neck support.

4) We have to resist the urge to stand him up. He’s not able to do it on his own, we shouldn’t be doing it for him right now.

This is all a pretty big bummer because it becomes very difficult to handle him with all these restrictions. There’s actually even more but the four I listed are the main ones. Not only is it difficult for us but it can also lead to awkward moments when people new to Otto want to hold him and they get this whole intimidating speech on what they can and can’t do with his body. It’s not fun for anyone. We end up just laying him on the ground or holding him ourselves. Luckily he’s content with both options right now but its possible that soon he’ll become bored with all of the laying down, rolling and mommy and daddy arms.

So why do we do it? We’re attempting to avoid causing damage to his spine that could/would cause him issues in his future. The primary culprit is something called kyphosis. Some children like Otto are predisposed to have problems with their back but in case that predisposition isn’t there, we can play a huge role in minimizing the damage. So that’s why we do this.
Kyphosis can endanger his spinal cord and normal spine function. In severe cases the kyphosis can result in the requirement of surgical intervention. Things like numbness, tingling and weakness in the lower legs can occur. Also loss of bowel and bladder control can occur.

It’s a lot, I know :)