baybeasts

We went to a pediatric physiotherapist yesterday. She was quirky and lovely and reminded me of social workers from the 80s with her bright clothes and rat’s tail off the side. Seeing her was the best thing we could have done. She was able to look us in the eye and say it is just a muscular condition (sometimes torticollis can be caused by more sinister things like bone or nerve problems), that he doesn’t have it terribly acutely, that it is great that we picked it up so early, that he will be easier to work with because he does turn his head in both directions (I think because he is such an alert, interested baby and he doesn’t want to miss out on anything!), and that we can expect to see improvement in a matter of weeks once we start the exercises she gave us.
It was a huge relief.

So we’ve decided to let the osteo have her way with him for a few weeks, to release the nerves and get his body into a better alignment, and then we will start the active stretching of the neck muscle. In the meantime we will work on encouraging him to move his head in all different ways, by holding him and placing him in a range of different positions.

He’s been so adorable lately (apart from wanting to feed 1.5 to 2 hourly between midnight and 6am). He really turned it on for the physio - she was there stretching his neck and moving it in all manner of strange ways and he just smiled and chortled for her! And last night our midwife came for a visit (all is well with tootle) and again he was full of joy and laughter, even though it was the classic arsenic hour time of 6.30pm. Mind you, she is one of his favourite people, and she does know exactly how to talk to babies.

So we’re feeling a lot better. Now we just have to work on getting more than an hour’s sleep at a stretch…