Infant craniosacral and positioning therapy · Brandon, SD · Ten minutes from Sioux Falls
Some babies are working too hard to be comfortable.
A licensed physical therapist looks at how freely your baby's head, neck, jaw and ribcage actually move — and what that is costing them at the breast, on the floor, and after a feed.
What brings parents in
Which one sounds like your week?
Three things send almost every family here. They look unrelated. Often they are the same problem showing up in three places.
Sleeping difficulties
Short, broken stretches. Settles only when held, only upright, or only on one side. Startles awake again and again.
Reflux
Spitting up, arching, pulling off and crying mid-feed. Comfortable in your arms, miserable the moment they go flat.
Breastfeeding troubles
One side works and the other does not. Latching, releasing, re-latching. Long feeds that leave you both exhausted.
What we look for
Four patterns, and how they show up at home.
These are the findings an evaluation is actually looking for. They travel together more often than not.
Plagiocephaly
A flat spot. One area of the back or side of the head stays flatter, and the ears, cheeks or forehead can start to sit unevenly.
Torticollis
A turning preference. Baby looks one way far more easily than the other, and resists being turned past the middle.
Hyperextension
Arching backwards. Head and shoulders press back, the chin lifts, and curling forward into a tuck is hard work.
Hypertonicity
High overall tone. The whole body holds tight. Fists stay closed, limbs feel stiff, and relaxing takes real effort.
The craniosacral system
Think of it as a jellyfish.
Underneath bone and muscle, the jellyfish floats and moves in her own ocean of cerebral spinal fluid.
The membranes that run from the skull to the sacrum are one continuous, fluid-filled envelope. Pull on one end and the other end feels it. That is why a tight spot at the base of the skull can turn up as a feeding problem, and why a baby who cannot tuck forward is also a baby who cannot settle.
The work is gentle by necessity. The pressure is light, slow and sustained, and the baby is allowed to move the whole time.
- Flat spots
- Head turning preference
- Torticollis
- Arching and hyperextension
- High muscle tone
- Reflux symptoms
- One-sided feeding
- Tummy time refusal
- Jaw and tongue mobility
- Startle reflex
- Rib and diaphragm movement
- Birth-related tension
A comfortable baby can finally get on with the work of being a baby.
Book an Infant EvaluationWhy a physical therapist
Advice alone is not the same as treatment.
Most parents are handed a sheet about tummy time and sent home. The clinical guidance on positional plagiocephaly is more specific than that.
The Congress of Neurological Surgeons guideline gives a Level I recommendation — its highest level of clinical certainty — for physical therapy over repositioning education alone, in infants from around seven weeks of age.
In the trial behind that recommendation, babies who received physical therapy had a 46% lower risk of severe plagiocephaly at six months, and 57% lower at twelve months, compared with families given written repositioning and tummy-time instructions.
What that means for you
Hands-on assessment and treatment, a stretching and positioning plan built for your baby's specific restriction, and someone checking whether it is actually working. Gwen is a licensed physical therapist with more than thirty years of clinical practice. If she does not think this is your answer, she will say so and point you where to go.
Individual results vary. This information is general and is not a substitute for care from your pediatrician.
At the breast
Nursing stumbling blocks worth mentioning.
None of these mean you are doing it wrong. They are the signs that something mechanical is making the job harder than it should be — and they are the ones worth saying out loud at an evaluation.
- ✓Pulling away, latching on, pulling away, latching on — ten times over
- ✓Jerking the torso while nursing
- ✓Crying while latching on
- ✓Crying after nursing
- ✓Only nursing comfortably at night
Tongue and lip ties
What we do, and what we do not.
We do not diagnose or release ties.
That is the work of a dentist, an ENT, or a physician, usually alongside an IBCLC. If what we see looks like a restriction in the tongue or lip, you will leave with a plain-language description of it and a referral, not a sales pitch.
We work on the body around them.
Babies compensate. A tight jaw, a neck that only turns one way, a ribcage that will not expand evenly — those travel with feeding trouble, and they are ours. Families often see us before a release, after one, or both.
Your first visit
What the first appointment is like.
Bring a feed, a change, and anything that soothes. Babies are fed, held and changed whenever they need it — nothing here runs on a stopwatch.
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1
The history
Birth, feeding, sleep, and what a bad hour looks like. Bring what your pediatrician has already said.
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2
Hands-on evaluation
Gwen feels how the head, neck, jaw, ribs and pelvis move, and where they stop. Baby stays dressed and stays with you.
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3
Treatment the same day
Light, slow, sustained contact. No cracking, no force, no holding a baby still. Many fall asleep.
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4
What to do at home
Two or three things you can actually manage, shown on your baby, plus an honest estimate of how many visits this takes.
Positioning
What varied awake positioning builds.
Sleep happens on the back, every time. It is the waking hours that carry the variety — carried, held, side-lying in your arms, and on the tummy while you are watching.
Back to sleep. Every sleep.
Your baby sleeps flat on their back, on a firm surface, until their first birthday. That is the single most protective thing you can do against SIDS, and nothing on this page changes it. Inclined sleepers, wedges and positioners are not safe sleep surfaces. Everything below happens while your baby is awake and you are there.
- ✓A round occiput and overall symmetry through the cranium and face
- ✓Soft, supple overall muscle tone
- ✓Full range of motion in the head, neck, shoulders and torso
- ✓Proper development of the pectoral girdle, which is what lets a baby roll over, sit alone and crawl
- ✓Timely maturation of the startle reflex
- ✓The ability to self-soothe, and with it longer stretches of sleep
- ✓More efficient digestion, by protecting and softening the respiratory diaphragm
- ✓A calmer, more relaxed constitution
Sessions and booking
Start with the evaluation.
The first visit is the diagnostic one. Everything after it is chosen from what that visit finds.
Initial infant evaluation and treatment
History, a full hands-on evaluation of how your baby moves, treatment the same day, a home plan shown on your own baby, and a realistic number of visits before you leave.
Duration and price: TBC
Book an Infant EvaluationInfant follow-up session
Requires the initial evaluation first. Treatment plus a progress check against what we found on day one.
Parent myofascial release
Pregnancy, birth and months of one-sided carrying leave their own restrictions. Booked for you, not your baby.
Meet your physical therapist
Gwen Homer, PT, ATC, CESMT
Licensed physical therapist and certified athletic trainer, with more than thirty years in physical therapy and sports medicine, and training in John F. Barnes myofascial release.
She works slowly, and she keeps her hands somewhere until the tissue answers. With babies that matters more than anywhere else: the pressure stays light, the baby keeps moving, and nothing gets forced.
Before you book
Questions parents actually ask.
Why does my doctor tell me to back-sleep my baby?
Because it saves lives. Sleeping on the back, on a firm flat surface, is the strongest single protection against SIDS, and the recommendation holds for every sleep until your baby's first birthday. We follow it without exception, and so should you. Nothing on this page is a reason to change how your baby sleeps.
So what is the trade-off of all that time on the back?
Not a safety trade-off — a mechanical one. A newborn's skull is soft, and hours add up. A baby who rests, feeds and plays facing the same direction can flatten one area and get tighter turning the other way. The answer is never to change sleep position. It is to add variety to the waking hours: carrying, holding, side-lying in your arms, and supervised tummy time.
Why does it matter if my baby has a flat head?
On its own, a mild flat spot is largely cosmetic and often rounds out. What matters is what usually comes with it. A flat spot frequently sits alongside a turning preference, and that affects feeding on one side, rolling, and head control. It is worth having looked at early, because the skull and the soft tissue both respond best in the first months.
Why does my baby cry when I give them tummy time?
Usually because it is genuinely hard, not because they dislike it. If the neck only turns comfortably one way, or the shoulders and chest are tight, tummy time asks for work your baby cannot yet do. Start on your chest instead of the floor, keep it short and frequent, and get the restriction treated — it tends to stop being a fight once the movement is there.
How does lying flat relate to my baby's reflux?
Lying flat does not cause reflux, but it does make it more noticeable, and a baby who arches or holds tension through the ribs and diaphragm often has a harder time with it. We work on the mechanical part: how freely the ribcage, diaphragm and neck move. Practical help at home is upright holding after feeds and varied awake positions. Do not tilt the crib or use a wedge or an inclined sleeper — those are not safe sleep surfaces. Persistent reflux belongs with your pediatrician.
Can back-sleeping cause trouble breastfeeding efficiently and comfortably?
Not by itself. But a turning preference, a tight jaw, or restriction through the neck and shoulders can make one side far harder than the other — and that shows up as pulling off and re-latching, jerking, crying at the latch, or feeding well only at night when everyone is sleepy and relaxed. Those are worth evaluating, usually alongside an IBCLC.
We already do the stretches and see a chiropractor. Do we still need this?
Possibly not, and we will tell you. If the stretches are working and your baby is moving symmetrically, keep going. We work alongside your pediatrician, your lactation consultant and your chiropractor rather than in place of any of them. If Gwen does not think she can add something, she will say so at the first visit.
Does insurance cover it?
Sometimes. This is manual therapy delivered by a licensed physical therapist, not a spa service, and coverage varies by plan. Call 605-582-1178 before booking and we will help you check, and provide documentation for reimbursement, HSA or FSA.
Bring the baby who cannot get comfortable.
One evaluation tells you whether this is your answer.