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Alice went to PT for torticollis from 4-8 months. Her flat spot was very slight, but she had extremely tight muscles on one side, so we never discussed helmets. PT was the obvious choice since it was muscular for her. We did stretches and exercises at PT and home and noticed an improvement pretty quickly. After a few months her muscle tightness had completely corrected itself. (She also started sitting up on her own and crawling which I think made a big difference since she wasn't laying down all the time).

My nephew had a pronounced flat spot at birth, but not torticollis. (Fwiw Alice and my nephew are both twin As. This is very common with twin As because of their positioning in the womb!). They did exercises (recommended by ped, not PT) with my nephew from about 6 weeks on, but it didn't help. He wore a helmet from 5-8 months. It was covered by their insurance, but they had to send letters from their dr and daycare and themselves explaining that they tried other things to fix the flat spot before going to the helmet. Once they did that, insurance covered it. ETA: they took molds of my nephew's head for his helmet, so I'm pretty sure they own it.

@bluestriped bee: Some other simple things you can do is to stretch them during diaper changes. While laying flat on her back we'd get her to look in the opposite direction of the tightness by using a toy or just guiding her chin down toward the changing pad with our hands. We'd also play with toys to get her to reach across her body. And we did tons of tummy time, including tummy time on an exercise ball, to give her the opportunity to hold her head up evenly. We also did side lying time where we'd put her on her side and get her to reach forward toward toys.

Here's a link to our experience: http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/our-journey-with-plagiocephaly

So glad we had helmet therapy!!

I remember Mrs. Jump Rope blogging about her experience:

http://www.hellobee.com/mrs-jump-ropes-deformational-plagiocepahaly-and-torticollis-series/

@bluestriped bee: the RNP can be turned as well! DS slept in the RNP right next to the bed but always turned his head toward me. So one night I would have it situated so his head was by my head and the next night, his feet were by my head. I could easily see him from both positions and it made him turn the opposite direction

Mine had torticollis and plagiocephaly. We avoided a helmet through PT. I also wore him a TON. I know that's harder with twins, but it did keep him off his back more. We went on lots of walks! I've also heard the RNP can be bad. We would put a blanket on the side of his head that he turned to to keep him from looking that way.

We did PT from 4 weeks till 18 months. At 4 months we moved forward with a helmet after his measurements kept getting worse no matter what we did. His measurement right before the helmet was a 17mm difference. His ears were noticeably uneven and it was affecting his eyebrows. We are in Ohio and my MIL works for the Cleveland Clinic. She found research that supported getting a helmet sooner was more affective. Our insurance covered anything that was more than 10mm. Our son wore it from February (4 months) till September (10 months). At the end there was a 4 mm difference.

I was initially so embarrassed but I just found this pic the other day and he was so cute.

@bluestriped bee: ahhh that does make it trickier! We went cold turkey to the crib from the RNP and it went surprisingly well. Good luck tonight if you decide to go for it!!

@bluestriped bee: RNP for the win! We rolled up a burp cloth and secured it with a pony tail holder, then put it beside her head to keep it from turning. It worked like a charm!!