Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Club Feet will ruin your furniture

Om is supposed to wear his Dennis Brown Bar for 12 hours a day. All the parents out there will understand that those hours easily fly by in sleep time. However after reading enough posts about relapse at the nosurgeryforclubfoot group at yahoo groups, we have increased Om's brace time to about 14 hours. So for a baby who sleeps 12 hours EXACTLY this means the extra two hours in the bar are spent in our family room and kitchen area. This wouldn't be a big deal if Om was still the stationary 3 month old. But he's not...as I type he has rolled out of the family room and into the kitchen, and is eyeing the next room (formal living room) as his current destination.

The problem is that when they have a hard metal bar attached to a pair of leather high tops, and they roll and kick in typical baby happiness, things get damaged. For instance, our wooden coffee table is a mess. He has kicked the table legs enough times that I've just ceased to stop him...the table is from G's bachelor days and wasn't in the best shape anyway. I don't want to get a new table because I know Om will just ruin that one too. We will just wait until he outgrows the kicking-things-with-his-bar phase (whenever that may be).

Om also manages to roll into the speakers of our new sound system. THAT is annoying, because they are expensive and probably can't bear the brunt of being smashed. Also, the microfiber and leather sofa has lots of baby scratches too. The bottom leather portion of the sofa is a prime area for getting scratched by the brace, and Om uses his finger nails to scratch the leather. The microfiber cusions were a great idea, however...spit up and food get cleaned up easily.

Oh and I can't forget the hardwood floor in the kitchen...Om loves new textures, and when he lands on tile or hardwood floor he likes to test out the area by kicking his braced legs HARD. I just hope when we leave this rental house that he hasn't caused too much damage, I feel bad for the landlord!

So here are some questions from a newbie Mom to all the experienced folks...besides surrounding Om with cushions and blocking areas, what can be done to soften the blow of the brace? And what can we do about saving the carpet from baby stains?

4 comments:

Jo-Ann said...

Gosh, I hope my son's story of relapse hasn't scared you too badly. Remember, he has a different kind of clubfoot to deal with.

As for the bar, we covered Matthew's with a piece of pipe insulator. It is a circular foam tube with a slit in it. We cut it to length, put it on the bar and then used zip ties to hold it on.

It didn't eliminate the damage, but it helped.

Good luck!

Priyanka said...

Hey me,

Maybe you can keep expensive things like speakers etc. out of Om's reach. We had to redecorate the place once Ash started crawling, nothing is within her reach now, either its too high for her or inside glass cupboards that she can't open.

Poor Baby, loads of Kisses to Om -XXXX

Sue said...

I'm sorry to hear of your struggles ... but I have to admit I smiled while reading! :) I like Jo-Ann's idea to help with the bar -- I'm sure you can come up with something creative (and soft)!

Just a note about the 14 hour thing -- (and kudos to you for upping the hours, and Om for tolerating it!) ... When Grace relapsed, and after her recasting this past fall, we had to keep her in the brace for 14 hours too. But she's a 3 year old!! A whole different set of issues, let me tell you. Anyway, it's OK to break up the hours -- you don't have to do 14 straight. Does Om nap? I'm assuming he does. For Grace, we kept the brace on for 12 hours through the night (7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.) and then I put them on again during her 2-hour afternoon nap. It worked great. Have you thought about trying that for Om? Unless your dr. specifically said 14 hours straight, I don't know. Just wanted to share what we did.

good luck!

Hitha said...

Baby stains on carpets are inevitable....don't even bother...landlords will wash / replace n charge us for that in any case baby or no-baby stains....

hugs n kisses to Om :)