MamaRoo Baby Swing for Babies with Hydrocephalus

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We love using our MamaRoo baby swing for our little one!  Babies with hydrocephalus can easily sit up in this one-of-a-kind baby swing and interact with the world around them.  #MamaRooLove

When Chris and I were trying to build our baby registry last year we were pretty much going in blind.  Having a baby with hydrocephalus complicates things a bit, because you don’t really know what items you’ll need or which ones will work with your child’s condition.  And when you’re a planner like I am it’s really hard to figure out what you’ll need on your registry when there aren’t many lists online to help you figure it out!

In all my research online last year the one thing I never could find was a recommendation on a baby swing for babies with hydrocephalus.  After our little one had his shunt placed to drain the excess fluid he had to lay on the non-shunt side of his head for a few weeks while his incision healed.  Because of this, for the first few months of his life, he couldn’t move his head from side to side due to tight muscles.  This meant that we had to be creative with putting him in things like his car seat or swings because he would otherwise burry his face in the side of whatever he was in (and we didn’t want that to cause him to stop breathing).

Our other problem was that his head is oddly shaped.  Because of the hydrocephalus it isn’t perfectly round and he had a very hard time laying on the back of his head until he was around six months old.  Even now he has to work harder than most to lay on the back and keep it there.

The reason we love the MamaRoo baby swing is because even with our son’s condition he is able to comfortably and easily sit in the seat with his head in the middle.  We do use a small gel pillow that our NICU gave us when we left to help him, but because of the curved sides of the seat our baby can mostly hold his head in place on his own.

The other thing we absolutely love are the five unique motions and speed setting that the baby swing offers, and have found that we love the car ride and wave options the best.  He falls asleep almost immediately if you turn either one of those motions on.  It’s amazing!  It also gives mom and dad a few minutes of quiet time to drink coffee or clean up around the house, which I very much appreciate.  Oh yea, and it also has bluetooth and can play songs from my iTunes library.  As a music lover, that feature is my personal favorite.

Here are just a few other reasons we love the MamaRoo baby swing:

1. It holds babies up to 25 pounds (or until they can sit unassisted on their own).

Y’all, my kid is a shrimp.  He weighed 8 pounds 13 ounces when he was born and he’s only 17 pounds right now.  So we are going to get a lot of use out of this seat!

2. It has it’s own app.

This is the main reason my husband loves this baby swing.  He’s all about technology and the fact that you can control the swing from your phone just ups the cool factor on it.

3. It’s tiny

What I mean by that is, it doesn’t take up a whole lot of room!  We love that the MamaRoo baby swing can easily fit in a corner and be out of the way.  Perfect for our small home.

Because our son still cannot sit up unassisted (we’re so close though!) this baby swing is perfect for him.  He can be somewhat upright and is able to interact with the world around him in ways that he couldn’t before.  The unique way the MamaRoo baby swing cradles him allows him to sit up and keep his head in the middle, and therefore is able to engage with us in playtime, reading, and other activities.  It makes our job as parents easier, because we feel like our son has more opportunities to be a part of things while he’s in the seat rather than relying on us to constantly hold him so that he can interact with others.

While we are so grateful for all of the strides our son has made in these very short eleven months, we’re also very thankful for technology that helps us help him in a ton of different ways.  While we try to sit our son up on the couch or prop him up on us from time to time, his head gets very heavy and it’s hard to support him.  But with the MamaRoo baby swing we are able to let him be somewhat upright for a time without him having to rely on us.  And for that we are very thankful!

It is constantly a challenge figuring out what things we need for babies with hydrocephalus, but it’s always so amazing whenever we find a product that we can use to help our son.  Even though there isn’t a ton of information out there for mom’s of babies with this condition, what I have found has been super helpful and what products we use have only made our lives and our little ones life easier.

Do you have the MamaRoo baby swing?  What do you love about it?