Share your Doc band tips

[HoneySpider]

DS2 is getting his Doc band on Thursday - any tips/tricks/general insight to make this go as smoothly as possible?

[ellipsis]

It's been a while, but honestly it probably won't bother him at all, especially since it's not summer! I got some cute decals from blingyourband.com.

[HoneySpider]

ellipsis, yes we are thankful it's winter since he already runs pretty warm!

We're going to paint it/put Chicago bears stickers on to make it kind of like a football helmet...since DH's team has a better record than mine he won out!

I am nervous about painting it though, I don't want to screw it up.

[vtdiamond]

Both my twins had them about 3.5 years ago. They both adjusted to them pretty quickly and had no issues with them. You’re lucky to be doing it during the colder months. The rules of thumb were to take them off and leave them off if the kids got a fever. They also could only be cleaned with alcohol so we used alcohol wipes, but they got pretty stinky.

My daughter was only in hers for 2-3 months and had a significant improvement. DS wore his for 6 months and still has a slant on the back of his head 🤷‍♀️

[sparty04]

My boys didn’t wear the doc band but had a full helmet. It was so stressful leading up to it, but really nbd in the scheme of things. My older DS wore his for about 6 months and my middle DS closer to 8, only because his still fit and his head was FLAT. DS2’s head is still a bit flat but overall I’m happy we did it with both boys.

Neither smelled that bad, and DS2 was a huge sweaty kid and wore it through spring and summer. We washed heads every night and cleaned the helmet with their shampoo and alcohol wipes every day as well. That was the most annoying part if I’d have to pick one.

I don’t know about painting (not sure that I’d even bother with something like that, but personal preference) but I’ve seen stickers that are cute. We did camo colored helmets and didn’t bother with any “bling”.

[tiki]

The biggest challenge for us was washing DD's helmet and having it dry again in time for her to leave for daycare in the morning. Since we weren't allowed to heat it up (heat melts the glue holding the foam in), I would towel dry it as best I could, then put it in a bucket and point a hairdryer set to cool at it. 

My one regret is that we picked one of the stupid patterns for it. The pattern stretched unevenly and looked terrible, especially right in front. If I had it to do over again I'd get a solid color and then decorate it with stickers. 

[tiki]

Oh and regarding painting - save that for next Halloween! If you can get the inner layer of foam out it will still be plenty large and can make an awesome costume accessory.

[HoneySpider]

Thanks, everyone!