The bouncer has been great. When Owen first started in it, he could barely get it moving.
Now he can get it bouncing off the wall. His legs have gotten noticeably stronger,
but it has had other benefits
as well. He has had the opportunity to stand up and hold his head up on his own, with
a safe fallback for him when the weight becomes too much. As such he's gained a great deal
of head control compared to before he had the bouncer.
However, as Owen turned one year old we realized that he really needed to get moving.
He still can't walk or crawl because of the weight of his head. He can lift his own head
off the therapy ball, but it takes all his strength and he can only hold it up for a few
seconds. So, we needed to find a way to let him move and none of the
off-the-shelf gait trainers seemed to help at all with head support.
Once again it was back to the shop to create something to let him rove.
Now I have to put a disclaimer in here. I know that pediatricians almost universally hate walkers
because of the number of kids that fall down stairs in them. One parent that I told about
this invention told me that I was endangering my child's life. So I will just say the following:
1) This little contraption is meant to help provide independent movement to a child that
has no other alternative, it is not a babysitter. Owen is never left in it unsupervised, just
as no child of this age should be left unsupervised at any time unless they are in their crib.
2) Baby gates are cheap. Use them liberally about your house to prevent your child from
falling down the stairs, cruising out of your view while you are cooking,
or crashing into your fine china cabinet (or be like me and just
don't have any fine china!). 3) As I'm sure each of you has
the common sense to already know 1 and 2, I'll move on now.
I started out by buying a cheap walker. I knew I'd be drilling holes into it and I wasn't
sure that I had a design that would work, so I didn't want to start with a $50 deluxe model.
So instead I started with a $14.99 model that I bought
here.
My first attempt was to sew a big cushion to put behind him that had some side panels to help
him hold his head up. That was a complete failure. I just couldn't get it to support in the
right places. So I decided to go back to the design that worked so well for the bouncer.
The basic idea was that I needed to have two poles in the front to attach the fabric panel
to. So I started by getting some 5/8 inch oak dowels. You need something strong enough
to handle some stress and oak is about the best you can get at Lowe's. I drilled a
5/8 inch hole in the corner of the tray area. I wanted to use two small blocks of wood
to stabilize the poles, so I drilled a 5/8 inch hole all the way through one and 3/4 of the
way through the other (despite the fact that it looks like I go all the way through in the
picture on the right. That was a mistake and I just put the 3/4 of the way through hole at the
other end of the block). I put the one with the hole all the way through on the top of the tray
and put the dowel down through it and the hole in the tray. Then I lined up the one with
the partial hole and put it over the end of the dowel. Finally I put a screw down through the
top block, through the tray and also most of the way through the bottom block. This pulled the
two blocks together and made the pole stable. I then repeated the procedure for the other
side:
I put some velcro on the back of the seat to attach the panel to. You need to pick a walker
with as high a back as possible. As you can see in the second picture below, the back wasn't
quite high enough and I had to add a small pillow at the top for additional support.
To help Owen support the weight of his head, I put in a strap that would go across his
torso. It was just two long strips of quilting material with one side of the velcro sewed
to one strip and the other side of the velcro on the other side of the strip.
The last thing to make was the fabric panel. I used quilting material that I stuffed a bit
to give it some support. It's just a big long rectangle with a piece of velcro sewed down the
middle to mate up with the velcro on the seat. I didn't try to velcro the panel to the poles,
I just wrapped the ends around the poles and sewed them in place.
All that was left was to put Owen in it.
For the first two weeks he just sat there when we put him in it. He would play with a toy in the
tray, but he didn't seem to realize that he could move it. Then I put a piece of bubble
wrap under his feet to get him playing with it. He couldn't roll over the bubble wrap, but
it got him moving his feet and he moved it a few inches a few times that day. The next
day he managed to move it about 6 inches in one shot, probably completely by accident, but
he got the idea that he could move. From there on he started moving it a few feet in each
session. It takes a lot of leg strength which he is still building up, but he can move
now all on his own. The best moment was when he actually moved about 4 feet and brought himself
right up to me. It was the first time in his life that he could get to his Mommy just because
he wanted to. Pretty big moment for both of us.
So he's not exactly cruising all around the house yet, but it's just a matter of time until
he has the leg strength to get that far.
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