Sleep Hat

 ****Warning!  There is a gross picture below****

Joel has had a wound on his head for about 10 weeks.  I am not even exaggerating.  I took him to the doctor on October 24th and it started about 1 week prior to that.  Unfortunately I don't have an exciting explanation for what happened.  One day he started itching the top of his head and he just couldn't stop and eventually it was the size of a half dollar.  He scratched at it during the day and at night no matter what I put on top of his head to stop him.  It looked like a hot spot on a dog and I wished so badly that I could just put an e-collar on him, but that isn't realistic.   I actually shaved a square on top of his head really short and tried to get a band-aid to stick.  It worked for all of a couple hours.

Notice the shaved spot on top of his head with ointment smeared all over

Joel ended up being on oral antibiotics and a topical antibiotics, which both helped a great deal but he still was scratching a little bit at nap time and bedtime.  He would go days without touching it,  I would comment how great it looked and next thing I knew he had scratched his head open again.  Talk about frustrating!  On a mom's forum I am part of on Facebook I asked for creative ideas to keep Joel from scratching.  There were a wide range of ideas but the idea that I thought would work the best was to use a swim cap.

What it looked like when it was at its worst.  Literally the size of a half dollar here.

Finding a swim cap in December didn't seem very easy, then I went on the internet and found a ton of swim caps for little kids.  I found a blue one with fish and a boat on it.  We told Joel it was his sleep hat.  He was excited and even more excited when Vincent had a fit because he wanted a sleep hat.  The one problem with the sleep hat is Joel wakes up sweating, so we try to avoid footie pajamas and if he does wear them to bed we don't zip them up all the way.  I tried cutting very tiny slits in the swim cap, but two days later it ripped and fell apart, so I won't be doing that anymore.

Joel and the sleep hat

Joel's eyes literally light up when he sees his sleep hat.  He loves the thing!  Which is wonderful because even though his head is healing, it is going slow (it is only the size of a pea now!) and he probably will be wearing his sleep hat for a couple more weeks.  I know it is strange, but it works!

the sleep hat