Flat head syndrome - do pillows really correct this?

[Keznel]

Hi my DD is 16wks and has a serious preference to lying with her head to the right. I have tried repositioning her but she always goes back to the same position. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of the cleavafoam pillow, particularly if it is safe to let her sleep on it all night? She is a restless sleeper so I'm not convinced she'll stay on a pillow!
Her head is not majorly flattened yet, however I'm keen to prevent it becoming a problem. Any advice/experiences would be much appreciated

I wouldn't like to say for sure that you shouldn't worry about the flat head, but my son had a very flat head at the back, a couple of friends thought I should be using a donut pillow or something, but I thought it would prob be OK (I haven't seen many adults with really wierd shaped heads so thought most people grew out of it). At 18 months he has a normal shaped head.

DS always slept on one side - he had a slightly flattened side and one very pointed ear which we affectionately named his Spock ear.

Now 9 all fine no flat bit and no Spock ear

I believe the pillows are recomended, but maybe your baby has a sore neck? My cousin has written a lovely blog about her ds with flat head syndrome, not sure if i'm allowed to link to i tthough. perhaps google will help.

My baby used to only like to lie on the left side of her head. This was the side her head was facing when she got stuck during labour. I took her for a couple of sessions of cranial osteopathy and that sorted it out very quickly.
In her case I think it was that her neck was stiff.
I am a little bit skeptical of alternative medicine but the results were amazing.
Have a google, it's worth considering.

Ignore the 'oh, it will be ok and you wont notice it when hair is there'

Try repositioning, pillows while awake (in pushchair, on floor/changemat) and look into the exercises for torticollis.

DS had a very flat head by 8 weeks old and everybody just dismissed it, told me it would be ok... I did loads of repo, cushions where possible and limited timein his car seat and bouncy chair. He still has a slightly flat head at 4yo but I am in no doubt that its much better than it would have been if I hadn't done all of the above.

Can second the cranial osteopath, DS also favoured one side and it was pushing his ears out of alignment and starting to affect his jaw it is definitely worth doing something as i dont believe it gets better on its own. A combination of cranial osteopathy, putting a,heart shaped pillow with hole in it on his change mat and play mat and using a lila kuddis pillow in his pram and cot (under a sheet) really worked for us although his ears are still a bit misaligned it would have been worse if we hadnt addressed it and he does still have à wee Spock ear.

Doesn't lying on a pillow restrict their airway? By tipping the chin down towards the chest? I don't know if I'd be happy with DD on one all night unless I was awake to supervise! As PP suggested I'll keep trying to reposition, and maybe consider a pillow for daytime. Amazon do an anti pressure one - butterfly shaped with a hole in it, has anyone used one of these?

Although cranial osteopathy sounds interesting I can't find anywhere in my local area that does it - co down However she was delivered by CS so I doubt it's her neck causing a problem.

DS was born by CS as was DD and they both favoured one side, with DD i took her to the Osteopath at a few weeks old after what happened to DS so was able to catch it early. The baby pillows are very flat so dont affect their airway but very much personal opinión on using them, some people happy for supervised sleeps. Look up lila kuddis pillows, they are from sweden where they give newborns a pillow. We put one under a sheet till DS started rolling then took it away ( sorry for grammar on phone!)

You can get mattresses especially to help, they really do work. Google them. Also I know 2 people who have had the helmets made for their babies, they wore them 23 hours a day for a few months and made a massive difference, but i think you need to do them when they are between 4 & 8 months, they do help later but not as much. Good luck

I have a friend with twins and hers both developed flat spots from lying looking at each other. She began positioning them so they weren't always in alphabetical order! Perhaps you could start placing interesting items on her "good" side to encourage her to look the other way when awake?

Thanks for all suggestions. I don't understand why new parents aren't made more aware of the problem. Surely advice on alternating their head position should go hand in hand with the back to sleep campaign? My HV & GP both have the it'll fix itself attitude! I've a 14yr old nephew who still has a flattened head.
I will definitely make the effort to get her to look to the left when on her playmat. I think we will change the side of the car the car seat is on, as she currently turns to the right to see out the window. She sleeps during the day on her doomoo chair (soft beanbag chair best purchase we made), and will definitely do a wee but more research into the pillows before deciding for sure

One of my girls had a flat spot behind her right ear, forehead slightly forward on that side and ears in different positions. We used Lilla Kuddis pillows as soon as we noticed which was around 5 months, in the pushchair, cot, bouncer and if she was lying on the floor. We repositioned her head whenever she fell asleep and used a sleep positioner at night for a month as well, to train her to sleep towards her left. We didn't want to overcorrect to create a further issues, so did it most of the time but not all. As soon as she could roll we stopped all pillows. It came right in a couple of months.

Have you had her assymetry measured?

I don't think it's bad enough to warrant measuring. My GP didn't think so anyway. But I'm hoping as I've caught it early if I follow advice given on previous posts, that we'll be ok Gotta be optimistic!