Sleep and the Spica Cast

When we left the hospital with Mackenzie in her first cast we were told that we should be waking her up every 4 hours or so to check her diaper and shift her position.  I asked around on a few different DDH forums and the consensus seemed to be "don't wake a sleeping baby!".  If you remember from the post when we first got home, that first night it was no problem.  She wasn't doing much sleeping anyway.  However, after the first week or two she thankfully settled back into her 12 hour nights.  We have never woken her up at night.  We have only had one diaper leak at night and it was nothing too major, and no issues with soreness from the cast.  We figure if she had a pressure point bothering her, or something of that sort, she would wake up anyway.

Sleeping in the crib

Here is how we position her for sleep:  In her crib we propped up one side of her mattress with a few rolled up towels.  This was just to give it a slight angle so that if she did have a diaper leak at night it would drain down instead of up into the cast.  A regular sized pillow was put in her crib for her to lay on from her lower back up.  And a rolled up towel was placed for support under her knees.

Towels under the edge of the mattress

Just a very slight incline at the left

Pillow and towel placment

Sleeping with Daddy.  All you need is a pillow and a rolled up towel.

Sleeping in the Pack n Play at Nana and Papa's - same set up with the pillow and towel

This arrangement has worked for us no matter where we are.  We set up the pillow and towel in the pack n play, or on the bed in our trailer when camping.  The nice thing is everyone always has a pillow and a towel you can use for her to sleep.

Camping in the Spica

This past weekend was our first time camping with a baby and our first time camping with a baby in a spica cast.  I imagine it was a bit easier to deal with the spica part since we had no previous experience of what camping with a baby would be like.

In true Mackenzie fashion, she took it like a champ.  She loves being outside so she really enjoyed that aspect of the trip.  We brought her spica chair with us and she would eat her meals there.  Our bed doubled as a diaper changing station.  We went for lots of walks.  And, besides that she didn't ever want to go to sleep for fear of missing any of the action, she slept through the night right until 7:30 am both nights we slept out there!

Having some snacks in the spica chair

The only negatives really were that this weekend was the hottest one yet so we left a day early and on the last day spent some time in our friend's air conditioned trailer to try to avoid her getting sweaty.   There were also a ton of mosquitos so when she was outside she was either in her stroller that has the net or I doused her in lots of California Baby bug spray.

Strolling with mosquito protection

All in all I'd say the weekend was a success!  We are looking forward to hopefully doing some more camping later in the summer.

Cooling off with some water and no clothes

Some crawling time in the trailer

One week down, 11(ish) to go

We have survived the first week of Mackenzie being in the spica cast.  Here are some random thoughts and tidbits from the week:

• Each day seems to take forever, but the week went by *fairly* quickly.

• We don't actually know for sure how long she will have to be in the cast so the count down is a little anti-climactic.  We also have not heard back regarding any of our questions for the surgeon. 

• She has started rubbing the hair off the back of her head like a newborn baby because instead of being able to roll over in her sleep she turns her head back and forth, back and forth.  This is exacerbated when she is crying.  I hope she doesn't rub it totally bald because she is already a little lacking in the hair department!

• It's really difficult because she can't tell you what is the matter.  When she cries I never know if she is uncomfortable, the cast is bothering her, or if it is just something "regular".  She seems to be a lot more cranky and irritable than pre-spica.  

• Sleep has been terrible!  She has always been a great sleeper (12 hours through the night since about 3 months old minus a few weeks during teething) and now she is waking up several times in the night.  Often she will be awake for an hour and a half at a time in the middle of the night and nothing seems to help unless one of us just holds her and lets her "play".   When I put her down for naps she literally clings to me and starts crying as soon as she sees the crib.  

• Yesterday I finally went through her closet and dresser and had to pack up so many cute clothes that have never been worn and she will never get to wear.

• Snuggle your babies and don't ever take that for granted.  She is really difficult to hold, let alone cuddle well.  She has never really been one for cuddling, but now its not even an option.  Her cast comes up so high that I can't even rub her back to try to comfort her when she is upset.  

• Her resilience is astounding.  She is pulling herself all over the house.  Brice is trying to "teach" her how to roll over and she did it once on her own on the third day in the cast.

• In a very scientific experiment I weighed myself with and without her and she is about 20 pounds with the cast which is only 2 pounds heavier than pre-cast.  She feels about 10 pounds heavier.

• Thankfully she loves the stroller so when she is especially cranky and refusing to sleep I just throw gentle place her in the stroller and go for a walk.  I'm dreading the hotter summer days where this won't be an option.

• It's tough to work through the feelings (this is Brice writing). The lack of sleep and her crankiness is getting to me. As I was telling coworkers, I understand some kids don't sleep well at  night, I could live with that or I could live with the Spica (at least I tell myself I could), but both is just unruly. I blame the cast for everything. If she's cranky, it's the cast, if she wakes up, it's the cast, if she cries, if we can't go for a walk because it's hot, if I can 't go for a beer after work, if I have a bad day, etc, it's the CAST. One week down. 

Spica Cast - Day 5

Yesterday was our first day on our own as Brice had to go back to work.  Lucky for us he is a teacher (so am I, but I am still on maternity leave) so we will both be home for all of July and August.   We just have to get through this week.

Mackenzie decided that napping wasn't for her and was quite fussy.  She always wanted to be held or directly played with.  She would also start crying as soon as I went in her room and got even close to putting her down in her crib.  I found myself constantly wondering if it was just "regular baby stuff" or if it had something to do with the cast.

We tried to play outside on the deck for a little while but shortly after getting out there I felt a few sprinkles of rain and that's no good for a baby in a cast!

She seems to be quite happy in the stroller so we went for a walk in the morning and again in the afternoon we walked down to pick up Daddy from work.  The day had been overcast all day and then shortly after we headed out the sun started shining.  It got hot fast.  By the time we got home Mackenzie had fallen asleep, but was drenched in sweat.  I felt so terrible.  We are really going to have to be diligent about not letting her get too sweaty in the cast.   Sorry friends, I'm going to be wishing for cool weather this summer.

Our Regular Stroller - Bumbleride Indie - works great

Just a pillow behind the back and we are good to go!

In the afternoon I did manage to get some smiles and giggles out of her.  It's amazing how that giggle and those teeth can just brighten up my day.

 I think we must have lucked out on the second night where she slept straight through.  Since then she has been waking up a few times a night.  Last night she was awake from about 4 until 5:30.  Again, not really sure what is going on.  We let her fuss for a bit, when she started crying harder I nursed her, but same thing that she would start crying so hard when we would put her back in her crib.  Finally Brice went down and just sat beside her crib for about a half an hour until she fell asleep.

Today I'm thinking about venturing out of the house - maybe make a Superstore run to pick up a few things.  I'm just not sure if I'm ready for all the stares yet......

Spica Cast - Day 2

The first full day home in the cast!

Despite the terrible night we had she woke up happy and content to play and seems like her regular happy self, which is so great to see.

Again, we set right to work finding products and advice to help make Mackenzie more comfortable.  We have ordered her a chair from IvyRose Spica Chairs and it should be shipped sometime next week. Mackenzie doesn't fit in the high chair we purchased when she was in the brace, so she doesn't have a lot of options for sitting upright.  Right now, one of us holds her on our knee while the other feeds her for meal times.  This chair will hopefully be used as a highchair as well as a play area for her.

We also ordered a Cast Cooler after seeing it mentioned several times by other "hip" parents online.  I think one of our biggest issues is going to be trying to keep Mackenzie cool this summer while in a full body cast.  Hopefully this will help provide some relief for her.

Brice went out and bought a ride-on trike for Mackenzie at Babies R Us, the 3 in 1 Smart Trike.   She can be strapped into it and seems to be very secure and allows her to be upright.

We also set up a "play gym" system with her bean bag chair and Baby Einstein play mat.

But she is also perfectly happy to just scoot around on the floor and play with her toys:

We took the legs off her Activity Table and she still loves it!

Army crawling around

We felt like we had so many questions that remained unanswered from when we were in the hospital.  So when we phoned to book the follow-up appointment that will be in a couple weeks, I mentioned that to the Doctors secretary.  She is so amazing and gave us a few options.  We could tell her the questions and she would ask the Dr and get back to us.  We could email her them and she would email us back with his answers and we could also call his Nurse Practitioner to ask her the questions as well.  We decided to email her the questions so we are waiting to hear back now.  

We also went for a walk with the InStep Bike Trailer that also converts to a stroller.  It only required the slight modification of adding a pillow for support.  For us this is great because it allows us to get out of the house when it is cool enough outside that we don't have to worry about Mackenzie getting too sweaty in her cast.  

Night #2 she slept straight through the night without waking up at all!  We had set our alarm to change her position half way through the night but either it didn't go off or we were so exhausted from the previous couple days that we didn't hear it.  Her diaper wasn't too wet so all was well when she woke up, happy again, in the morning.  

Spica Cast - Day 1

When we got home from the hospital with Mackenzie the first thing we set to work doing was trying to figure out how to keep her comfortable and how we should position her.  We already had our bean bag chair from when she was in the brace.  We also had borrowed another bean bag chair that was actually shaped like a chair from Brice's parents.  We tried her out in that chair and gave her one of her favourite toys, a rattling monkey, and she was just as happy as could be.  I can't tell you how happy this made us.  To see her just taking everything in stride and carrying on like nothing was any different made things so much easier for us as her parents.

We built a little "nest" on the floor with a pillow and a rolled up towel and she laid there happily on her back playing with an empty water bottle from the hospital while we got supper organized for both ourselves and her.  At this point she hadn't had any solid foods since supper the night before.

After supper we put her on her stomach, again building up supports underneath her to try to minimize the pressure from the cast, and to our utter amazement she immediately started spinning herself around and trying to army crawl.  She definitely isn't as fast as she was, she has a little extra weight and a lot less help from her feet, but she can move!

We put her to bed at about 6:00 because she was just so tired out from the day and lack of napping.  After we put her down we finally had some time to process the day and everything that had occurred.  Brice had done a lot of research online reading up about the procedure and what to expect.  I on the other hand would get extremely emotional and I think I was almost in denial to some extent and I was seriously un-prepared for caring for a child in a spica cast.  We set right to work searching online for any products or information that could help us get through the next 12 weeks with a child in a spica.

The first day was emotionally more difficult than we expected.  We took some time to mourn.  We were mourning the loss of our "normal" child, the things she would miss out on being able to do this summer.  The things we will not be able to do.  We needed to take some time to feel sad about the situation.  But to be honest, as soon as we saw our baby who was just as happy and content as ever, we were instantly taken to a good place.  We can do this.  We will  get through it.  Yes, there will be some difficult moments ahead and it will not be as "easy" as caring for a child who is not in a full body cast, but we will make it.

Night 1 in the cast was honestly terrible.  Mackenzie has been sleeping through the night from about 7 pm to 7 am since she was just over 3 months old (minus a few weeks where she was teething like a mad woman) and now woke up every hour from 6 pm until 3 am.  Most of those waking she could be quieted back down with just a minute or two or reassurance from us, she was still mostly asleep and I'm guessing that she would wake up and not be able to roll over like she would normally do and then get upset.  I did end up nursing her back to sleep a couple of times that night.  She slept from 3 until about 5 am and then again from 5:30 to 8:30 before waking up happy again for the next day.