Flat bit on head

Hazel

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It looks like one side of Connie's head is flat. She always sleeps with her head to the same side so could it be going flat that side? If it is will she have to wear one those helmets all the time :( ?
 
At Connie's age you can help by gently moving her off the flat bit when she's asleep and lots of time on her tummy/off her back when awake - this includes being out of car seats/bouncers as well. There are also special mattresses and pillows you can get to help though we haven't used them.

Have a wee look on the plagio support thread above. Becky has a flat bit (plagio) but we aren't going for helmet treatment.
 
my son had the same problem. the best thing for now is to try and re position her when she is asleep so she is sleeping on the other side.
Chances are as her muscles get stronger she ill find it easier to do this herself.
We still had a problem with charlie tho and he ended up using a love nest sleep cushion which helped but I would speak to your HV before using anything like that as they dont reccomend them if there is just a mild problem.

I'm sure she will be fine and it will sort itself n time :hug:
 
As repositioning wasn't working at all we bought a Goi Goi pillow and after two months of use we can see a great improvement (and Louis is not sitting up yet so it has to be the pillow!) :D
I didn't bother asking anyone about it because I had the impression that everytime I mentioned the problem it was completely dismissed as something that would get better one day... and what if it wouldn't :twisted:
The first and only time I saw the HV when Louis was two weeks old she gave me a leaflet about plagio and I wanted to know more, even though Louis's head was perfectly fine at the time, but she just answered "that's a very rare condition"!!! It doesn't seem to be so rare considering the amount of parents worrying about it... If I had known about these pillows I would have used them much earlier.
 
DH only noticed it yesterday and now I'm obsessively looking at it :( , her hair is also flat on that side so I tink it probably looks worse than it actually is. I will do even more tummy time until we see HV next week and then ask her about it. Never even heard of plagio before now :? .
 
All babies favour one side or the other. You need to encourage them to start using the other side also. Things like when feeding making sure you position them so the pressure is off the side they favour and that sort of thing. And as has been said, tummy time etc is all good.

Also we used to from about 3 weeks put Galen to sleep on his side during the day for naps. This made sure he slept on the less favoured side. Same with feeds, both boobs I'd position him so he was off his favoured side.

You should have plenty of time to help correct if you encourage repositioning. And over time your LO will start to turn her head more both ways and also sleep on the back of her head.

Don't panic. Start with changing position and so on and if need be a pillow. Talk to your HV for advice also.
 
Perhaps Gem will be able to offer some advice if she see's this. :)
 
My son also had a flat bit on the side of his head from favouring one side. We took the repositioning really seriously, we moved the cot, the changing table, always fed him and bathed him so he was looking the other way. If we put him down on a play matt we put toys to the other side and it slowly got better. His head is now perfect and he doesn't favour either side. Aslong as your baby can look both ways and the neck muscles are not tight then repositioning should help alot.
 
read the plagio support thread hun, might be worth looking at. theres quiet a few of us with babies with 'flat head syndrome' Kyran has it and it was really bad at 4months now at 9months its corrected by itself. he might have a slightly flatter head than some but its not noticeable really at all. Read the thread hun as two of the girls on here have had their babies treated with the STARband helmet and its really interesting and worked brilliantly.
 
Hi there,

My son, Oliver is wearing a helmet at the moment to correct his flatness. As other people have said - check out the Plagio thread at the top of this Health Issues Page. I've recently put up pics of Olivers before & now head shape (see page 18). The helmet treatment is working brilliantly.

BUT - at the age your LO is, I'd definitely give re-positioning a try for a few months first.

The only other point at this stage would be to say that if Connie has a preference to looking in one direction, she may have a tight neck muscle (torticullis) & would benefit from pysiotherapy, so if you've noticed this you should get her to a Dr's to ask for a referral to Peadiatrician & pysio.

If in a few months time there is no improvement & you want more info on the helmet treatment, send me a pm & I can give you the low-down.

Good luck :hug:
 
I'm ringing the doc tomorrow morning as she's developed a little cough today from her cold that I want them to check and I'm going to get her flat bit looked at. The quicker it's looked at the better. I've been feeding her solely on the other side since noticing it hoping that will help and lying her slightly on her otherside when asleep.
 
I think this early on repositioning will help. Keep at it as much as possible. Also as has been said, make sure she is turning her head both ways and not favouring the one side too much. Might be a muscle problem then.
 
My son suffered with plagio and we had to resort to helmet treatment in the end.

Be warned, your doc and HV will more than likely tell you that the flatness will correct itself in time. They probably won't even give you any of the advice that the ladies on here have about repositioning etc....

We had to find out about repositioning etc ourselves. We did get some improvement by following the many tips on the plagio forum websites and we bought a sleepcurve mattress and goi goi pillows and basically kept our son off his back as much as possible during the day. Not easy when they're very young.

The younger baby is and the sooner you start repositioning the more chance you have of seeing improvements.

It's so, so common. I notice it all the time after going through it with my son. I'm constantly checking my daughters head as she has a favourite side too.

Good luck with the repositioning, stick with it and I'm sure you will notice an improvement.
 
Had HV appointment this morning and she said it's only slightly flat so keep up with the repositioning and it will get better over the months :D . She said she will monitor it though.
 
Thats good. She is still young so you have plenty of time to keep with repositioning. Its the best course of action at this point tbh.
 
Chester had a flat bit on the side of his head, it was quite bad. We sleep him upside down in his cot so he's on the "good" side when facing us. He now sleeps on his side really so its not such a problem now. He started to get muscle tightening and favoured looking right all the time, but with encouragment, moving toys etc to the other sides thats corrected itself as well.

I didnt realise so many babies suffered with it, I felt terrible about it at first but it can be corrected with a lot of perserverance!
 

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