Battle of the Brace~sleeping~CONTROL....

We've been experiencing "sleep issues" again. The past week, Amelia has decided to wake up in the middle of the night/morning and begin her "Mommy" call. Yes, she chants..."Mommy! Mommy! Mommmmmyyyyy!" Over and over and over again. If I do not respond in what she believes to be a "timely fashion", the screaming begins! And I do mean screaming! I had thought we were over the hump~ HA!!! I even went so far as to vocalize that we were getting along so well lately. I guess she showed me. Which is what so much of Amelia's behavior is about~Control!!!

Markell shoes on a Denis Brown Bar

Which brings me to my next topic....the dreaded brace that she wears 14-16 hours a day. It's a wonderful contraption~unlace, loosen bucket, force chubby foot in, wench down buckle, re-lace and wah-lah, you are finished. Can you hear the sarcasm???? Steve HATES this thing~he actually breaks into a sweat when he tries to put them on Amelia. I have sort of mastered it and can whip through it rather quickly.

Nice screw....wrecking havoc on my hardwood flooring....How does a little girl get that off after I wench it on. Do I need lock tite???

Amelia doesn't fight us on the brace. Well, not really~she uses a more passive aggressive way to fight us. She will bang the shoe/brace against the floor, mattress or whatever to loosen the massive screws on the bottom and then she takes the shoe off the brace. Imagine my surprise when I check her before I go to bed and find her shoes unscrewed!?!? It's very irritating.

I'm also a huge stickler on her wearing the brace 14+ hours. Honestly, she should probably be wearing them around 16 hours. We usually get 12 hours at night and then 2 hours at nap time. So I've been extending the time in the morning and right after nap time. It's been working out o.k.~but it means that I have to put the brace on her at around 7:30 p.m. since she is an early riser. Not such an easy task since summer is almost here and it's daylight until 9 p.m. So now the brace has been going on later at night which translates into wearing it later in the morning. Do you see wear I'm going with this???? Needless to say, we are in another transition phase that hasn't been much fun.

The new Dobb's brace is in and we will be getting it fitted this week. Amelia will also be wearing AFOs during the day and hopefully it will assist her with walking. If you do go to the link to check out the brace, know that there is some controversy about the bar and this video. If you know anything about braces and braces, the second brace is clearly too small for this little girl which will cause her to be uncomfortable. Amelia can crawl like a champ with this bar and she can stand quite well.

There is also another site you can check out . This is a family with three children~all born with club feet. She is a tremendous resource for families that are dealing with club feet. The biggest difference for us is that Amelia did not have the benefit of treatments during infancy, which is what US born babies get. Amelia was living with her feet for 16 months before any treatments. So the protocol is slightly different~like wearing AFOs during the day. Many people would say that this is not appropriate procedure. But since Amelia has nerve and tendon damage~her case is different. On and on I could go about the different perspectives.

So we are moving forward with the brace and AFO until we have the tendon surgery in the fall.