Had our first cranial Osteopathy today

[Hel1985]

My little girl is 9 weeks old and she had her first cranial Osteopathy today. She is rarely content and never can sit still always squirmy and fidgeting. Extremely hard to settle to sleep too. I am constantly waking and changing her position to keep her comfy, which is why I booked in with cranial Osteopathy, but it hasn't made any difference yet :( we are booked in again next week, so trying to stay wishful, that it may help my little one to relax a little 🤞

I love cranial osteopathy and think it's magic stuff. I had it through my pregnancy and have had it sporadically since then. More recently. My daughter had a couple of sessions when she was tiny (on the recommendation of a hospital midwife as she was born with forceps), and she's since been about once every six months. How are you feeling? It might be a nice thing for you to have if you are frazzled.

Thank you for your reply, I've heard to many great experience from it I was really hoping it would work for my little girl. I may look into it for myself. I don't really know how it all works and he didn't seem to do much, but heard that's usually what people think. Sorry to be noisy but what benefits do you get from going occasionally for you and your little girl? Also do you see alot of difference afterwards at all?

Hi! I don't fully understand what is going on with it either but I think a general principle is that it is one of a number of "light touch" therapies which counter perhaps to our expectations can be quite rigorous in their way and have quite deep and profound effects with apparently minimal manipulation force. Myofascial release would be another example, in a way also practices like tai-chi and qigong.

I can only really speak from my own experience which is that I tried cranial osteopathy originally to cure migraines. Funnily enough I eventually found that regular deep tissue massage on my upper back was the best way to avoid migraines. But the cranial osteopathy was absolutely brilliant for me on the emotional level. I accidentally found that it worked wonders for me in helping sooth jangled nerves and deal with the impact of "secondary trauma" from the vulnerable people I work with. So I carried on with it and then when I stopped doing that work I just carried on having regular "services" and sometimes go more frequently if I feel the need. As for the impact on my child, I can't definitely say as I don't know what would have been otherwise but I find it so grounding that I think it can't be a bad thing to have during a time of such enormous change as early childhood.

Is there something specifically they are working on? Cranial osteopathy isn't just some magic thing that can make an unsettled baby settled. It only works if the issue that is causing the problem is one related to structure and soft tissues.

It is very normal for them to be less settled just after an appointment, so you wouldn't see much difference right away anyway. I use it for myself and I often feel quite sore after (obviously the work done on adults is very different to that on children though). But it has to be a problem they can help with to make any difference. They should have done an assessment, where they able to tell you what they were working on and give you things to do at home that would help.

I had cranial osteopathy done on my eldest as a baby and it really didn't do anything. She had structural issues in her mouth (nothing that could be fixed) that made feeding difficult and she was just a high needs baby. There was nothing wrong with her, just how she was. My youngest though had torticollis (a stiff neck basically) and very limited range of motion in his shoulders/neck. We did probably 2-3 appointments and it was like a miracle. Even after the first one, I noticed a real difference in how he moved and he was obviously much more comfortable.