To ask about premmie development?

[myangelsx]

My DD is 6 weeks old and still hasn't came home from hospital as she has hydrocephalus and is waiting for an operation although she is awake a lot she doesn't focus for very long, she is always looking around but never quite looking at anything if that makes sense?

She's my first so obviously it's all new to me but I've read that round about this age they can start to hold their head up a bit and even smile? Yet she doesn't seem anywhere near that! She was 8 weeks premature and would be 39 weeks tomorrow!

Is this normal for a premmie baby?

But really she would only be arriving around now, so although she is 6 weeks old she is really a newborn.
Babies don't focus straight away, nor hold their heads up.
DS was 6w prem and these things took a while to come.
Don't panic, your baby is in the best place and if they have any concerns they will let you know xx
Congratulations by the way x

The retina keeps growing until 4 weeks after (full term) birth, so it's likely that it's not developed well enough yet.

Some prem babies develop retinopathy of prematurity, but they only screen those born before 32 weeks, so it's less likely to be that (although you could speak to the staff if you're concerned).

In my experience there was a lot of general looking without seeing for a while. Try not to worry, spend time talking to her, reading to her and cuddling her and hopefully as her eyesight improves you'll feel like she's looking at things more.

Oh and in terms of holding her head up, I would be amazed if she could! In most things you use "corrected" age for development milestones (amount of time since due date) and she's not even at her due date yet, so the click hasn't even started

She's only just hitting term. For premmies, you count developmental milestones from when they should have been born. So smiling 6 - 8 weeks from the EDD, not from the date they were born.