Prematurity

Swaddling Baby For Preemies You already know that babies far better during the first few months if they’re swaddled. This makes them feel more like they are in the womb, and it helps them to sleep better. These babies may still have things like colic, but they are far less likely to feel unsafe and frightened if they’re swaddled up to the letter. Swaddling baby is something that you should be extra careful about if you have a preemie, as they benefit from this more than full-term newborns as...Read Full Story

Obviously we all take pictures of our precious preemies - some of us might be accused of taking too many (if you're in that group well, come have a seat next to me). Preemies present some interesting and challenging photo opportunities. I've covered some of those suggestions and issues in previous posts but I thought I would pull them together into one post. In the NICU: When your preemie is in the NICU you will obviously want to take a lot of photos. You want to document this very important...Read Full Story

My apologies about the delayed post - yesterday was just one of those days. Today's developmental post is about the connection between toys and development. There are so many toys in stores today and sometimes it can be hard to find the right toy for your preemie. When you're looking for new toys (or deciding which toys to bring out of storage), it's important to think about what stage of development your preemie is in. What are his/her interests and abilities? How much movement is your...Read Full Story

When it comes to being an advocate for your preemie one of the best (and often frustrating) resources you will have is doctors. You will often have various specialists involved in your preemies care. Every doctor has an opinion or a way of doing things. The key is to find out how to work with all of them in order to get the best care possible for your preemie. So this part of the advocate series is devoted to doctors. There will be three parts including general tips, practical advice and...Read Full Story

This developmental idea/project comes courtesy of my sister. She just had a baby (full term) and yesterday she was telling me about a little project she made for him. I thought it was a great idea that would work well for preemies so I wanted to share. As you probably know, when babies are small they can only see black and white. They like to look at high contrast pictures. Images such as checkerboards, circles, simple animal faces, etc. are a great way to keep a preemie interested and...Read Full Story