Cranial Osteopathy, experiences please?!

[ElleOhElle]

I'm considering this for my 9 week old as he can be so unsettled. we had a traumatic labour/delivery, so interested if that might be having an effect on him.
What age did you take your child?
What for and did it help?
I'm sceptical but desperate at the same time. would love to hear success and failure stories so I can make a more informed decision.
thanks all.

Am sure other posters will have positive experiences but it made not one jot of difference to dd.
I took dd when she was 8-10 wks old to a (very experienced) CO recommended by a friend as dd wasn't sleeping during the day at all, she was regularly awake for the better part of 10-12 hours and just wanted to bf all the time.

Made no difference and I didn't really appreciate the CO telling me dd's sleeping was probably down to my having a ELCS. Yeah, thanks for that.

(Dd improved hugely once I weaned her at 6 mths, she took to a bottle and solids like you wouldn't believe. The poor mite was just hungry.)

I also had a traumatic delivery and ds ended up with a ping pong skull fracturess they struggled to get him out with a CS. Old school type head midwife suggested I try CO if DS didn't settle down (he cried solidly the first night after birth) . My rational brain says CO cannot work and it is too woo for me. But it did seem to help DS a lot and after one session in particular the dent in his head seemed to "pop" and the dent was a lot less deep. We had 4/5 sessions and it improved both his sleep and reduced his overall fractiousness.

We went, however, the way we looked at it was that it wasn't going to harm ds.
There was a set number of sessions (was told that if it made no differences in 3 sessions it would't work at all) so the max it would cost us was £100

Ds had 5 perforated ear drums in his first 5 months of life. Breastfed, straightforward birth, we had been referred to the hospital as well so we decided on belt and braces approach.
By coincidence ENT Consultant at the hospital saw him before the first CO session. 3 CO sessions later our follow up appointment with the ENT consultant, he couldn't explain the difference in DS. He hasn't had an ear infection since.

Did his ear tubes grow just enough in that time so that they drained instead of blocked or did the CO do something? Who knows, I was just delighted that he was better.

sounds interesting, I guess there's no harm in trying. can't make his day time napping worse (currently non existent)

As above I went very sceptically and on the first session ds1 fell asleep on the couch during the treatment - the first time he had ever fallen asleep off the boob at 12 weeks. It transformed him from a whingy baby with horrific colic (traumatic birth too) to a placid happy chap. A second session and his colic disappeared too.

I have a control test! I took ds2, who was a much happier chap but who did have colic, when he was 6 weeks old, because it had worked so well on ds1. He enjoyed the treatment but it had no effect on him and the CO said that she could detect no head trauma, so we saved our money and didn't go back.

HTH

Worked wonders for DC1 (breech, emcs). Sorted his colic overnight, after one session. We had another session a few weeks later as I thought colic was creeping back. Amazing.
Sent DC2 to CO because he was so unsettled, didn't do anything to him but then the CO said that she didn't think she could anything to relieve him. It turned out he had some sort of digestive thing that got sorted when we changed formula.
I am NOT into alternative stuff normally but was ready to try anything. imo, it works wonders for some ailments and if it does, it is money well spent.

I took DS after his tongue tie was clipped. He really only turned his head to one side as well.

The first session he had a screamy meltdown the whole time, which wasn't terribly unusual, he was about 6 weeks I think. I was holding him and the CO was incredibly gentle and I didn't think she was actually doing much but he could turn his head both ways after the session. We went back for two more weeks after that and by the last session he was just sort of blissed out during it.

I really don't know if the CO helped or whether he just sort of grew out of it but he seemed to turn a corner and was a lot calmer. It's definitely worth a try.

I took my DS to have cranial osteopathy at a few weeks old. It was fine. No idea if it helped but it helped my peace of mind taking him a couple of times. My DS head was stretched by forceps. He cried a lot more after a few days after his birth and seemed not quite right.

She showed me what she does on my hand and basically the movements are as gentle as putting your finger gently on your skin. There is barely any movement but they know what they are doing and where.

Similarly to million I had one crappy experience at a CO.
Recommended by a friend. He was v professional looking but although an Osteo who practiced cranial, he was not a registered craniosacral therapist. He told me my baby's sleep "problems" (which I have now accepted to be 100% normal and natural esp for breastfed baby) were all my fault and it seemed that I actually PAID him £45 for him to give me a lecture about sleep training. I was so shocked that he didn't even examine my little boy I paid up and left to go and have a cry. I complained since but never got a reply.

I then found someone on the craniosacral therapist register who was lovely. My little boy loved visiting her and we had three sessions at £25 each. Made not one jot of difference to his sleep issues but did fix a few digestive ones!

booked an appointment, will be interested to see how it goes