It turns out your hip sockets aren’t fully formed at birth. They’re flat and somewhere between 8 and 10 months, when babies first start standing, they start weight bearing on their beautifully chubby little legs. The more weight they bear through their legs, slowly but surely their hips begin to form sockets.
That’s all well and good, except that Mikaere can’t hold up his own head, let alone stand and bear weight.
So finally, after months of waiting, we got a stander. A beautifully green, giant piece of plastic special needs equipment (if I was upset about the chair, it’s got nothing on the stander. At least the chair is recognisable as a chair. The stander is more like a kid friendly Hannibal Lecter restraint. But without the straight jacket. My lounge is being overtaken with equipment with neon ‘special needs household’ signs all over it. This is our life now, my emotions and grief are scrambling to get on board, but hey ho. Moving on).
So the stander was fitted and now, for a minutes a day – Mikaere stands.
My kid? He’s tall. Super super TALL. I didn’t know that. I knew he was long, but I’ve never seen him upright. And while he’s lying down, sure, long. But he’s standing now. And he stands TALL. It’s an absolute delight to see him upright, he looks older somehow.
It’s early days yet, but we’re trying. If he’s in the mood he’ll tolerate it well. If he’s not in the mood he really really won’t (I don’t blame him, being strapped into a thing and not being able to move anything but your arms must be tough).
Here’s the thing though, if Mikaere doesn’t spend time in the stander, he’ll never form hip sockets. If he doesn’t form hip sockets he’ll be at risk of hip dysplasia (read: frequent dislocation) and osteoarthritis (read: pain and stiffness).
So, standing. It’s a preventative thing we’re doing.
At this point it’s only minutes a day, but eventually it’ll grow up to an hour or so, we’ll make it happen.
The things we do, hey?
