what is WRONG with me, why can't i understand the BLISS website?! i have lots of questions about preemie development, can anyone help?

[Aitch]

and of course this is where we really miss tinksmum...

things like first smile etc, i've been told i should wait under her cba to expect to see that, but then i'm sure i saw a tear in her eye today and i thought that didn't happen until later. are some things developing and not others?

what happened to you lot? dd is 1 week old cba (7, really) and i'm wondering when things like sleep patterns start to emerge. i'm bfing, seems like a big cluster feed (which i could do with ditching) in the morning, then a sleep, another long feed, another sleep and then cluster feeding all evening. is that common, or am i just firmlyy in the 'you have a baby' camp now?

Sorry don't know about premature babies but certainly my dd3 was a big fan of the cluster feeding in the morning and evening at that sort of age. I first noticed it start to change when I realised I wasn't pushing a pram full of screamer home from the school run at 9.05!

oh that's good to know, i've heard loads about cluster feeds in the evening but not so much in the morning. and of course dd1 was on formula top ups which used to knock her out like a light immediately she fell off the bottle.

I think there are some things that go with cba as they are neurons switching on, and others that are just with time in the world which go with actual age. The bfing pattern sounds totally normal to me though, although DS didn't cluster feed in the morning so much IIRC - although we coslept a lot then so he'd just be there whilst I dozed.

by morning i mean she has a feed about 6ish (5-ish, wheneverish) and then falls asleep again and wakes at nine then wants feeding until 11. we're cosleeping too, couldn't think of putting her

is there somewhere to learn about the neurons, cmot? apart from cbeebies?

'couldn't think of putting her in the hammock when she was so wee... felt like she needed a heartbeat to keep her ticking. wos wot i ment to rite.

I'll have a bit of a Google later as I'm currently work avoiding (stupid document review)to find some proper things about it.

One of DH's friends has a real thing about Nina - can't quite see it myself, but get annoyed at scientific inaccuracies. But then DH was telling DS (2.5) all about metamorphic rock the other day in response to 'why rock sparkly daddy'

we saw nina at a bbc event thing, even as herself the actress really does keep her hair in bunches. i lost all respect.

My Ds was v prem (29 weeks) and definitely some things came at cba and some at actual age. DS1 was 6 weeks cba before he smiled but did other things much earlier. I remember feeling that we had the first 6 - 10 weeks of newborn stuff for aaages, and in fact it really was all his prem time and then the first 6 - 10 weeks before he started to find a pattern etc. Hope that makes sense!

I could never understand the Bliss website either! I think you have to try to go with the flow a lot more with premmies, and that they cluster feed quite a lot. I remember that DD1 (also 33 weeks like your DD2) was still up half the night at 11 weeks and my mum saying to me "of course she's only 4 weeks old really" and me snarling back at her "yes but I'm 11 weeks worth of tired!". It may sound trite, but it will all work itself out in the end (!). By about 4 months DD1 was pretty 'normal' I think - I remember that she smiled at 11 weeks (not adjusted). I also think that all babies are different and that it's very easy to put things down to them being premmie - for example I spent the first 3 years of DD1's life thinking "oh, she's small because she was prem", but now DD2 (who was a strapping 38 weeker) is smaller at 18 months than DD1 was, with teeny-tiny feet, so perhaps I just have small babies/toddlers!

Ds2 was 5 weeks early and smiled bang on 11 weeks (6weeks cba).

It seemed to take ages to get into a pattern with feeding though. The constant feeding sounds very familiar, it felt like it would never end. I found it helped to keep reminding myself he should only be x-5 weeks every time he woke for yet another feed. It was also a long time before i felt I could put him in his cot. It didn't feel right. For the first few weeks I kept thinking he should still be inside me so I'd do the next best thing and have him right beside.

that should be "beside me"

Ds was late with everything - even compared to his adjusted age. Didn't smile until about 14 weeks corrected, neck control about two months behind and and still can't sit at nearly a year (although he can stand - go figure). He did have IUGR though and his head is bigger than his body. I've just learnt to love that I've had him as a baby so much longer than anyone usually does, esp now he's starting to turn into a toddler.
I bf at the start and remember it seemed like constant feeding in the morning and evening. His sleep patterns didn't start sorting out until he was 5 1/2 months actual.

Aitch, appreciate your confusion but think that as for term babies the range of normal behaviour is very wide. Add to that the fact that BLISS aims to support families whose los may have v poor outcomes and I think it means that it can seem difficult to apply what it says to your baby. plus the milestones that paeds focus on come much, much later - sitting, eating, babbling, self feeding.

FWIW dd (27+5) came home 35+5 weighing 1.96kg. Fed like a bandit night and day and it wasn't until around 8-10 weeks after her due date that she had something like a routine. Nothing I imposed, just what evolved. So I had around 3.5 months of newborn like behaviour which I honestly do not know how I survived. Sleeping through......ahahahahahahahahah..how about 2.6 YEARS. She definitely got stronger and more alert around 4 weeks past her due date and started to go for longer between feeds once she passed 3-3.5kg.

She smiled early (3 weeks cba) but everything else was about right for her cba -sitting at 6 (9) months, babbling at 11 (8) months, picking up small objects at 12 (9) months etc etc. I think that the differences are usually less pronounced in babies like your dd who are mildly/moderately premature with no other issues

My daughter is smiling at 6 weeks (corrected age - actual age is 4.5 months). A miracle in itself as she had laser eye surgery for ROP.

She's also started sleeping through the night with cluster feeding anywhere from 6.30pm onwards until she's stuffed (and usually a bit sick, but having reflux doesn't help).

I've been told to expect everything late (usually the normal milestone age plus half of weeks early which in our case is a lot of weeks!).

I think they're all different and all do it when they're ready......I'm trying to not get hung up on developmental delays if and when they arise.

Can't remember lots of developmental milestones but I do remember my ds (7 wks prem) sat up at 10 months and walked at 22 months. Now 4.3 he has the same mobility as a 3 yr old in terms of running/jumping etc. He has hypermobility so finds it harder to control his joints (he falls over a lot). He also had a very poor immune system so caught every bug going and then couldn't get rid of them, eg he had Chicken Pox for 6 weeks and ended up on all sorts of meds. Only really in the last 4 to 6 months have I seen a change in him actually being able to fight infections.

Some things he did early - getting all his teeth by 21 months and talking sentences at 18 months. Although his gross motor skills were delayed his fine motor skills have always been ahead of his actual or corrected age by quite some margin.

I think it is best not to get hung up on when milestones should occur. It used to drive me nuts when my ds was a baby and I was surrounded by mums with full term babies.

Mine smiled at about 5 weeks corrected age, 13 weeks actual, but then she rolled over the week after, which you wouldn't normally get I think??

I think they're all just different!

Mine smiled at 4 weeks corrected age (real age 10 weeks). I'd say as time went on she was a tiny bit behind other babies in rolling, crawling and walking but hardly anything to notice about.

She clusterfed til about 3-4 months old corrected but that was my choice really to get her to wake less in the night for milk.

The bliss website is notoriously crap and has very little useful info from what I remember. I did find the bliss message boards really really useful in those early days though, worth taking a look (although obviously not as good as MN).

Agree the bliss website is useless. best thing to do is write everything down and ask your doctor all at once when you go for the check ups.

Some things come at actual age others at corrected, development can be very disordered in prem babies, ds2 was born at 28 wks & was almost 6mths before he smiled.
But he was in a fantastic routine (thanks SCBU) by the time he was 8 wks.

Oh & of course as with all babies there is a huge age range for development anyway, add in the prematurity.
I never found the bliss website very helpful but the literature in scbu was very good if I recall, so I think some of their printed stuff is better.