We had a helmet appointment yesterday, after Emily has been in her helmet a little more than 2 months. Since her head measurements look good, there isn’t much room left to grow, she is meeting milestones and she doesn’t spend much time lying on her head, she is going to be done wearing it in a month! We have our next (and final!) helmet appointment scheduled for June 27, which will be our final scan at the orthotics office and a follow-up at Children’s Hospital. If she hadn’t had any room to grow in the helmet yesterday, I think she would have already been done, but since there was a little room, we will have it for another month. We don’t expect to see a whole lot of change in the next month, but I suppose you never know. Her head isn’t perfect, but no one’s head is perfect! I am just thrilled that Emily won’t have to wear the helmet during the hottest part of the summer, and that of course, we will get to see her head full time again soon!
Emily was 9 months old on Wednesday, May 23. She is making a lot of progress physically and is moving around a lot! She isn’t crawling for real yet, but she uses her arms and legs to push her forward to get where she needs to be. I wouldn’t call it an army crawl, but something similar. Her physical therapist is very determined to get her to crawl properly, so we are working on getting her into the hands and knees position (and she does like to bounce in that position now.) She is one determined little bugger though! When she sees something she wants, she will get to it! I think we are going to have to really start paying attention to our baby proofing since we’ve become lax with Samantha being older now. Most of our “proofing” still exists, but we just don’t always use it (i.e. cabinet locks aren’t attached, gates are left open, etc.) And now that Samantha will leave things like barrettes or fake coins lying around, we are going to need to make sure those are out of Emily’s reach.
I recently learned about an orthotics company in the Carolinas and Georgia who created a nice educational and informational web site explaining head shape issues and treatment options. I thought the “causes of head shape abnormalities” section was done well, as were a few other sections. Check it out:
Level Four Orthotics and Prosthetics
I have also shared a few recent pictures of Emily (and Samantha.) The last few pictures are actually of Emily without her helmet and you can see that her head looks really good. We were recently on vacation in the Outer Banks and the girls had a blast! I was worried that it would be hard to manage the helmet with the heat and everything, but I guess I was forgetting that Emily still takes 2 naps a day and that she wouldn’t be in the sun much anyhow! There were only 2 days where she had the helmet off for an extended amount of time (more than 1 hour). Our orthotist told us that she was most concerned about the helmet being left in the heat (they can melt!) and about sunscreen getting under the helmet and irritating her head. I guess these things could really happen any time, so we will have to remember a hat and sunscreen any time she is outside, but with a 9-month-old, we would really have to do that anyhow.
My Helmet Baby (Squared) 
Thanks for posting Level Four O&P’s new website on your blog! Find us on FB @ http://www.facebook.com/Level4CranialDesigns. We are so happy Emily is close to graduating fromher STARband! She is a cutie pie!
Again, thanks for the mention of our company Level Four O&P!!! We work very hard to educate as many families as we can. I think Emily is looking great!!!
Can you tell me who do your band decals? We are getting a band in a few weeks.
I used Blingyourband.com. I follow her on facebook and she offers daily deals on stickers to the first responder(s). I follow Little Bumpies on FB as well. Links for both are on the side of my blog page!
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was for me to find your blog! My 6 month old just got his helmet (same band as your little one’s) on Monday, and while our orthotist has been wonderful so far, I still don’t feel like I have a true support system to deal with the less technical aspects of this process (e.g. being unable to freely kiss my beautiful boy’s head for 3+ months). Anyway, just wanted to say hello!
Hi there, any and all help on how to address my insurance company in a letter in aiding us to start my daughters treatment would be so helpful. thank you for any help you can give me. xx brooke
Hi Brooke, Have you started the process yet? We went to a cranio-facial plastic surgeon at our children’s hospital to get a referral for the helmet. They sent a letter stating that we tried repositioning and that a helmet was recommended. Further, we submitted information from the STARband office from her scan that stated/showed that her asymmetry was more than 6mm. With that information, it is more likely that the insurance company will approve the helmet. The STARband office that we use will not start the helmet process unless you’ve gone through this “standard” process. Have you seen a specialist? We do not have a Cranial Technologies in our area, and this is the process that most people in our area go through. Not sure that all CTs are in-network for insurance either. It all depends on your insurance company and where you live.