We were expecting a hard plastic, or possibly plastic and metal brace for Mackenzie and were pleasantly surprised when we ended up with what they called a Diaper Splint. They brought out a piece of stiff foam which they measured against Mackenzie and cut to fit her. They then heated up the foam in a pizza oven and brought it back and moulded it right against her. Velcro closures were added to keep it tight and allow us to take it on and off for diaper changes and baths. They even added the cute ribbon detail to the velcro with pink polka dots to make it more girly!
You can see in the photo on the right we used a nursing pillow to support her when laying. We learned that we could place her chest over the pillow (this is not pictured) and the sides would hold her in place while she played with toys on the other side (this also prevented her from rolling of her stomach as much).
We bought a bean bag chair on the advice of others on the internet (we bought it at WalMart which had the cheapest bean bags we could find). While she didn't care for it, because she doesn't care to be immobile, it served us well from time to time when she would sit still.
Life in the brace was pretty good. Mackenzie had just started sitting up really well before she got into it so it wasn't too big of an issue that she wasn't able to do that any more. We thought we had it set to have a way to keep her on her tummy now (she wasn't a big fan and would always roll over as soon as we put her down on her stomach). Well, she learned within a couple of days how to roll from her stomach to her back and it only took another week or so before she was rolling both directions. She became quite mobile in the brace. She would spin herself around in circles and push herself backwards with her hands. She also started to do an army crawl pushing off her toes and pulling with her arms.
She didn't fit into the high chair we previously had and were able to find a new one that fit her. We took her to Babies R Us and basically just tried to put her in every high chair they had to try to find one that worked. We tried some booster seat type chairs first, but none of them worked. FInally we found the Bright Stars InGenuity Perfect Place High Chair to fit her in. It was one of the pricier ones, but thankfully it went on sale about a week or two after we bought it and they price protect.
We also needed to buy a new car seat because she no longer fit in the bucket seat style. Again, we went to Babies R Us and put her in a bunch of seats until we found one that worked. The Evenflo Triumph 65 which had a wider base that she could fit in with the brace.
She loved going for rides in the Stroller/Bike carrier that we got from Costco.ca and fit well it in without any adjustments needing to be made.
The last item that we bought for helping care for her in the brace was a carrier. We went with the Infantio Support Ergonomic Carrier which is very similar to an Ergo. She fit really well in it in her brace and it was also discreet as the brace couldn't be seen while she was in it.
As far as clothing we were told she could wear regular clothing under the brace as long as it wasn't too "bulky". We mostly stuck with tights style pants and used baby legs a lot with a onesie. At night she would wear footed sleepers when it was colder or else just a onesie and a fleece sleep sack. I also really liked putting her in dresses when we would go out because it would cover the brace and stop some of the stares and comments.
We got some interesting comments from people while out and about with Mackenzie in her brace. One lady asked if it was for attaching toys to so that she didn't drop/throw them around. Another person asked, when we were out shopping and I was just carrying her, if it was to help make her more easy to hang onto. Overall though people were really great about it and usually just asked what it was and carried on.
The 8 weeks in the brace went by much more quickly that we could have even imagined and soon it was time to head back up to see the Doctor and find out how things were going. I still noticed a click in her hip during diaper changes so we thought it was possible she may have to stay in the brace for a longer period of time, but weren't really sure what to expect. We were trying not to be too optimistic.
