Premature baby development - corrected or actual?

[Penethea]

Hello all - my ds was born at 32 weeks and is now 11 weeks actual, 3 weeks corrected age. I'm not sure whether his development will follow actual or corrected age, as it seems to be a mixture of both.

I'm particularly interested in feeding as ds has reflux and I've been told he'll grow out of it - wondering how long it might take. I'm know all babies develop at different rates so we won't know for certain until he starts growing but it would be interesting to know your experiences.

The corrected age should be used roughly up to the age of 2 years.
Having said that, as you said yourself, development in children varies so enormously that it is impossible to be really acurate about these things.
As long as he is developing and growing it is unlikely that there is anything to worry about going on. And yes, a mixture of corrected and actual age is usual: he could develop communication/babbling early, but sit late, or viceversa.

My DS2 was born at 31 weeks; he is now 5 years and starting school in August . He was still wobbly when sitting aged 10 months and did not walk until about 16 monhts. He is now the more physical and athletic of my boys. I do remember at the time worrying a lot about him, particularly as his brother had been early in achieving all the milestones.
Toptip: do not compare your baby to other children! I say that but I was utterly unable to stick to that myself.
Congratulations on the arrival of your son, having made it through the scary first few days/weeks and having him home .
HTH.

My DD was a 32 weeker too, and it's been a mixture really. She's almost 11 months now.

Her reflux only calmed down when we started on solids to be honest, she was never seen without a bib on before then!

Hi

Just reiterating what the previous posters have said really as its been a bit of both. Heidi was born at just under 33 weeks and is now coming up to 14 months. She was slow to smile at 13 weeks actual (6 adjusted) but she has been within the normal range for physical milestones, crawling at 10.5 months actual or 8.5 adjusted and she started properly walking about 10 days ago, almost right on her adjusted first birthday (she is so pleased wit herself!). I would say she is slow on babbling and language but she'll get there.

She also had reflux (the silent kind) and we were just able to get her of all her drugs before her actual first birthday.

I'm glad to hear your little one is doing well and long may it continue

Fiona

Hiya - congrats on the birth of your baby!

My daughter was a 31 weeker and I used her corrected age for development + milestones etc. for about 2 years. Probably by about 18months she had "caught up" - I was pretty obsessive about comparing her with "term" babies + again I support all the advice which says try NOT not to do this!!

On weaning, I do remember that the advice was to use actual age, rather than corrected age when starting solids, so about 6months from birth (however this was 4 years ago, so maybe worth checking again) - try www.bliss.org

Best of luck!

My DD was 31 weeks - now 17 YO! Flash. You can't help but get a bit obssessed the first year or so, it will settle - but I did BF only until 8 months and think this is way to go if you can.

Thanks everyone - that's really useful. I checked out Bliss, booboobeedoo, and you're right - they say between five and seven months actual age. Thanks for the tip, as I was assuming it was corrected age. I'm really looking forward to seeing him develop!

I found that after a while DS fell into line with other babies his age but who were not premmy. It depends on the baby - in fact he did things before babies who would have been 2 months older than him if he was born on time. He was born at 34 weeks and is now 18 months old.

Weaning was a funny one some people were told to wean premmy babies early as they have less iron or something but I was told to use his actual age rather than corrected.

Thanks Loujalou - DS is pretty much progressing according to his corrected age at the moment but we are weaning according to his actual age and started solids yesterday when he turned six months