At her last doctor’s appointment, she was in the 94th percentile of dome circumference for her age. Big heads run on my side of the family.
We give her “tummy time” on her belly, but she can’t lift her head under her own power. She tries but her little neck can’t do it. She wiggles a round in a face plant position then gets frustrated. Apparently, most babies can do that by now.
She’s otherwise happy and healthy. We haven’t been back to the doctor, but she didn’t seem concerned at the last meeting.
If she can’t really move her head very well on her own, I would encourage you to make sure she has equal time on both sides and lots of time being held. My daughter had plagiocephaly. It seems to be a self worsening condition. Once a f lat spot develops she’ll favor that side and it’ll get works…but fear not, 3 months in a $2800 DOC band will fix it.
I do blame us (her parents) partially for it. They said she had torticollis which means one of the muscles in her neck was slightly shorter then the others so she always favored one side. But we did leave her laying down A LOT and I have to assume that was part of it. In fact, I believe the PT person said they started seeing a lot more of it when people started switching to having kids sleep on their back.
Take a look at this site. The PT we used to have it corrected uses this method. From what I understand this is the way to get it fixed, but there aren’t a lot of people that do it, so you might want to see if there’s one in your area. If you were to need one, you’ll be at the PT alot. I think we were there once a week for 3 months. Luckily the one we used was about 40 minutes from our house (and close to my parents house, so it worked out). But I know there were people that were coming from an hour or two away.
I would suggest taking her back to the doctor just to check. My son’s head grew a lot between 6 and 9 months, but he’d had a CT scan at 2 months, because it was a little bigger than average, and they said there was nothing wrong. So I didn’t worry about it, I thought ‘well they said there was nothing wrong’, but there was something wrong, and they had missed it. Better to be safe than sorry.
Looking at the websites, my baby’s head is symmetrically flattened in the back. Looks like it usually can be corrected with different sleeping positions and whatnot, especially since she’s not quite 4 months old yet. Hopefully, it won’t require more.
ETA: Looks like side sleeping support things are sold at Target.
A sling is a great way to help prevent flat spots, encourage neck development, and make your kid more coordinated and possibly smarter, without keeping the carrying parent from getting anything done. Both my babies loved being held upright in the sling with their tummies against my chest, splayed out like little frogs. You can pull up the sling so it supports her head until she gets the hang of it. It keeps your hands free so you’re less tempted to let them lie in a baby seat or swing all the time so you can get chores done.
I also agree - keep up with it with the medical folks, just to be sure. Probably nothing, but best to attend to it to be certain.
As a parent of a big headed 6 year old (his head is bigger than his mom’s already) and normal headed 8 year old, I am going to give you something else to worry about as the inability to lift her head will pass quickly.
Make sure her facial muscle tone is good as she grows up (bad muscle tone leads to speech impediments etc.) In retrospect, there were lots of early signs (drooling, not chewing food well), but due over development of his neck muscles and his ability to make the proper sounds to “speak” with his larger mouth without moving much, when it came to complex sounds he had/tried to do everything with his tongue. Two years of speech therapy later and he is speaking well now, but still needs some reminders some times.
The speech therapist told us that his problems are often seen in big heads who just don’t exercise their mouths (and heads) in the same way as other people. I don’t have a good cite other than n=1 and the explanation of two speech therapists, but if it makes her future life better, I hope early warning helps.
No medical advice one way or the other, but big heads are a family trait here as well. My mother says that when she was pregnant with me, at the age of 35 which worried her quite a bit, the ultrasound showed a very large head and the tech was a bit concerned. My mother said it was the one thing she didn’t panic about, because, as she said “If your father had been there it would have all made sense.” (My father has a very large, round head. At least mine isn’t as round.)
I remember buying a new bike helmet when I was around 14. The salesman asked if we were sure I needed an adult size, since I’ve always been really short. (Probably under 5’ at the time.) He picked up the small, and it just perched on top of my head. I ended up leaving with an adult large helmet. I still remember the embarrassment of being a small person with an enormous head.
So yeah. I hope very much there are no problems, and that the worst you’ll have to deal with is finding hats and helmets large enough for your daughter. (I took up knitting because it’s the only way to get a toque that covers my ears.)
Doc said babies with big heads tend not to roll over or lift their heads as much, so they tend to get flat spots in the back more. Just keep her day naps on her sides and the head should even out. Corrective helmets is going too far.
n=2. Our speech therapist never connected the two things for us but my son has a large head (We called him “the unnaturally large-headed baby” as a nickname) and he has poor muscle tone in his mouth, was a sloppy nurser and has needed a few years of speech therapy.
