Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Walking Question during Mitchel brace period

xoxojax14-My son is 13 months and in
his Mitchell Brace 12 hrs at night. Sometimes he wakes up SCREAMING
and nothing eases him until I take the bar off (leaving the shoes on)
and then he goes right back to sleep. I have gone nights without
putting it on because he is so miserable. Doc said his feet look
great. Do you ever leave your child's bar off? JW if anyone else's
child is this way. I think maybe their legs fall asleep being in that
position for so long, mine would! I feel so bad for him as soon as I
put it on, it still breaks my heart. He can never get comfortable and
sleep in his favorite position without having trouble.

Shannon-I put James in his shoes at night
I usually put them on early while he is still in a good mood and then
I don't connect the bar until bedtime. Even so, he's still getting his
12 hours in. Remember, the bar is the key part to the whole thing.
It's what keeps the correct angle of abduction and dorsiflexion.
Without the bar it's just like wearing a stiff pair of shoes.
As for walking, James walked at 15 months, a little later than some of
his buddies but a little sooner than others. I don't think having
clubfeet hinders when they start walking.

Winter-I just went through this with my 19 month old son. He has been so
crabby lately and not sleeping well at all and unconsolable at times
during the night. First I thought it was because he was getting 2 new
teeth. Then I thought it was his tummy he has some GI issues and sees
a specialist. So I took him to the pediatrician to take a look at him
check his ears and rule that out. He was fine. That night I took a
look at his bar and noticed that it looked shorter for some reason.
Turns out the screws in the little back piece were loose and every
time he banged his feet around it was making the bar shorter. So I
adjusted it tightened the screws, well he slept through the night!!
He has been much happier. It is amazing what a difference it made.

My experience? Dania is a good girl so far..she never complaint and while tighting the shoes strap, I've explained to her why she need to wear the special shoes..She seems to understand..She can sleep comfortably with the shoes and sometimes she even wants to walk when the brace is still on...I'm so lucky right to have her?

So how is your children cope with the brace?

1 comment:

Honey D said...

hi,

it's hard to maintain braces especially when babies started to crawl, stand n etc. my experience, my baby keep on crying and fussy until we removed the braces. last appointment, we asked doc to mould AFO night splint for him. but still, we are not satisfied with his feet condition.

i just found out about the dr dobbs brace after u sms-ed me last nite. found below website also which might be useful. about the dr dobbs braces, it can be compatible with mitchell and markell shoes.

http://six-feet.com/dobbs-dynamic-foot-abduction-brace-for-clubfoot.html