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.