Preemie milestones

[sweetcali]

Is it possible for a preemie to hit milestones early?

Baby L is 13 weeks old, 2weeks 5days adjusted. The Wonder Weeks app says she's 9 days away from her first leap but I feel like L is already past that one. She's very active, she has toys that she stares at and a mobile that she follows and turns herself toward. She will turn her eyes and head to me when I walk in and start talking. She also smiles during our "play time" that I don't believe is related to farting. I've seen both.

I know this is a good thing but I want to make sure her care is geared to her actual development and not textbook leaps based on her due date. I've only heard of preemies going slower not faster. What's your ladies' experience with this?

[motownthrowdown]

I think that it's entirely possible for preemies to hit milestones "early" and it sounds like L is doing that. The way they explained the milestones at our NICU preemie development class is that we shouldn't EXPECT the baby to be doing whatever activity until the appropriate adjusted age. I consider the ages to be more of an age range. Example: my daughter was born at 28 weeks, so right now, she is almost 7 months chronological, but only about 4 adjusted. I watch for developmental things and milestones that occur from 4 months to 7 months old. If she does 7 month things, that is fantastic. But if she only does 4 month things, that's considered developmentally appropriate, given her adjusted age. So for your DD, I would EXPECT her to be doing things that the average 2 week old baby does, but I would be looking for things that a baby between 2 weeks and 13 weeks might be doing.

[sweetcali]

That's an excellent explanation. Thank you so much.

[theycallmekveld]

Dec 7, 2015 13:14:11 GMT -5 jnetx said:

Dec 6, 2015 17:08:52 GMT -5 motownthrowdown said:

I think that it's entirely possible for preemies to hit milestones "early" and it sounds like L is doing that. The way they explained the milestones at our NICU preemie development class is that we shouldn't EXPECT the baby to be doing whatever activity until the appropriate adjusted age. I consider the ages to be more of an age range. Example: my daughter was born at 28 weeks, so right now, she is almost 7 months chronological, but only about 4 adjusted. I watch for developmental things and milestones that occur from 4 months to 7 months old. If she does 7 month things, that is fantastic. But if she only does 4 month things, that's considered developmentally appropriate, given her adjusted age. So for your DD, I would EXPECT her to be doing things that the average 2 week old baby does, but I would be looking for things that a baby between 2 weeks and 13 weeks might be doing.

What she said. You may also notice trends that are specific to your baby. For example, my baby was closer to his actual age in social and fine motor skills, but closer to his adjusted age for language development and gross motor skills. And remember that even with full term babies, the range of "normal" is wide and just gets wider as the get older. Know what to look for and share concerns with your pediatrician, but try not to worry too much until you have a reason to.

And what SHE said. My son (who was a preemie) is behind in physical development but his speech and cognitive development are ahead. Kids are just weirdos.

[mynameiscarrie]

I'm not active on this board, but I am so glad you started this thread sweetcali! I've also noticed that my Maddie seems to be doing things in the first "leap" but after seeing how many N15ers babies are starting to smile on purpose, I started to get worried that she is behind. She was born 5 weeks early so she is only about 3.5 weeks old adjusted. It makes me feel better that she may not be smiling because she's just little and not because anything is wrong.

[alygohome]

I am not really active here but my dd was 4-5 weeks early (depending on which ultrasound the docs go by) and seemed to be late on random things, like finding her feet but was early on things like army crawling and pulling to a stand. So I think it is very personality/child dependent. Her best baby friend is 2 months older (3 adjusted) and she did a few things before her friend, there is nothing wrong with her baby friend (who was full term) she just wasn't as interested in mobility as dd. Even full term babies can hit milestones "late" and still be healthy.