Baby Tresses: lovin' these locks!

I've never had a baby with this much hair before!

Halle had some but the helmet she wore for her plagiocephaly wore it off by 9 months (so sad!), Wyatt also had some (although the least of all my kids), and Carson had quite a bit more than the oldest two. However, NONE of them has had hair like Charlotte! I realize some people have babies with even more hair than this (how would that be!) but I am having so much fun with Charli's dark mop. And I do have to say I love that it's dark. It's even showing hints now of having some red highlights in it...think it will change to auburn?

I got a ruler out so I could measure the length - I'm sure it may have grown a tad since birth, but I honestly don't think a ton. It's over 1" long! Just a hair shy (pun intended) from being 1 1/2" long!

You may have noticed in the above picture that her head leans towards her left shoulder. She is the third child out of four in our family to have what is known as Torticollis. It's when the muscles of one side of the neck are longer than the other, most likely caused from either 1) the baby's position in utero, as though they grew and developed in a cramped position or 2) one side of muscles being pulled or stretched during delivery. Since this is child #3 to demonstrate symptoms like these, I'm assuming reason Number One is our culprit. It's discouraging, because it will likely cause her to lay with her head in the same position, causing plagiocephaly (when her skull flattens on one side and bulge in the other), resulting in the need for wearing a helmet to reshape her head. That's sad because presently her head is such a lovely shape. The helmets are also expensive for the parents and uncomfortable (hot and sweaty!) for the baby. But as bad and shallow as it sounds, the idea of her having a helmet concerns me most of all because...I don't want it to rub off her beautiful hair!!!

We feel fortunate that we've noticed it early on and are being very aggressive in the physical therapy stretches we had to do with Carson and Halle to stretch the shorter neck side and retrain her to lay her head in varying positions. We're prayerful and hopeful that we'll be able to do a pre-emptive strike, resolving the problem before any plagiocephaly occurs. But if it does, we do have enough of a perspective to realize other children experience problems much more invasive, painful, and heartbreaking than this. We're grateful that overall Charlotte is in excellent health and that at the moment, her life has no other medical complications.