Preterm baby and development

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Ive read in books that if you baby is preterm (my DD was born at 36 weeks) that when looking at the 'normal' development milestones, you need to determine the dates using their original EDD not the date they were born - Im interested to know whether people with preterm babies have experienced this? .. particularly with growth spurts - my DD is now 6 weeks and I am pretty sure she is going through the classic 6 week growth spurt - but does this also get delayed ie am I really only in week 2?? Also sleeping through the night - did this happen later? Thanks

This is a hard one to answer, my dd was born at 30 weeks and her development has been pretty much in line with her original edd. However she was my second child (ds born at term) and I had already realised that 'normal' milestones don't really count for much, they just do things when they're ready and they're all different. If she had been my first I probably would have been panicking and reading too many books.

I've very intentionally just sat back and let her get on with stuff and tried not to worry about it. For instance she only started sleeping through at 16 months (uncorrected), no idea why she just suddenly started sleeping 12 hours straight (hurray!!). At 18 months she's still only got one word whereas ds was speaking quite well at this age. She walked at 15 months but took a lot longer than ds to get 'stable' (probably because ds was knocking her over all the time though )!

The only advice I can give is don't stress about it and try not to read too much into milestones. Enjoy her while she's tiny!

I'd agree- don't read too much into milestones, they are all so different.
DD was born at 36 weeks and she did crawl and walk 'late' but I think she would have anyway (and it was very late not just a month or so).
DS however was born at 34 weeks and he crawled very early and is strong as an ox!
I can't really remember growth spurts etc even though he is still only 10 months but they are all slight approximations really I think.
The 'sleeping through the night' tends to be more weight related anyway, regardless of age as their tummies need to be bigger. Although DS was small when he was born and slept through relatively early on.
They will measure their growth against their adjusted weight and height until they are about 1 but I wouldn't get too hung up on what they should be doing when (easier said then done I know.

(And by the way I've just realised I know excatly who you are and I could have put this in an email to you!)

Haha tvfriend - worked out who you are too - thanks!!