On March 18th, we officially have a 4 month old baby, which is still weird cause she was really just supposed to be like 6 weeks old. Anyway, I digress...Olivia has really shown her personality more in the last few weeks. Smiling when we make funny faces and fighting sleep like it is her job. We agree that she will probably be pretty stubborn--being that she decided to arrive early and does most everything at her own time. So if she does not want to sleep, she clearly is not going to sleep and no amount of rocking, white noise or blankets will trick her into falling asleep. Which by the way makes for very LOOOOOOONG days. A few days, my schedule looks like this: I take the 10 minute 'nap' in the morning to use the bathroom and put away some laundry and then use the next 10 minute 'nap' at 1pm to have lunch. Then trying everything possible to get her to sleep for even just a little bit. Marc and I have been taking nightly walks with her in her baby carrier because is almost always a guarantee that she will sleep while we walk, so we get a little time to catch up with each other!
We are constantly surprised by our little miracle baby. She is hitting all her adjusted age milestones like a champ and sometimes ahead of schedule. She loves to smile at herself in the mirror, loves to coo and make noises, and loves kicking her feet. At tummy time now, she barely puts her head down, so we know her neck muscles are getting stronger and stronger. Though when you hold her upright, she still sometimes flings her head back, so there is a little bit more strength training to do.
Let's talk about Adjusted age, I feel like all the NICU mom terms are so common to me, but I get they are not as common to the whole population. When a baby is born pre-term, they have two ages:
1. Their birth age, aka how old they actually are. Olivia is almost 4 months and 3 weeks old actual age
2. Their adjusted age, aka how old they would be if they were born at term. Olivia is 8 weeks adjusted age, based on her due date of February 6th.
When deciding how well a preemie baby is progressing, they only base it on the adjusted age until they get to about 18 months -2 years. So when the doctors and OT and PTs look at what Olivia is doing, it gets based on the fact that she is 8 weeks adjusted age.
So for Olivia being almost 5 months, you might expect that she should roll from belly to back, but no one expects her to be able to do that yet, cause in the doctors eyes she is measured on her 8 week birthday, and 8 week olds don't roll from belly to back. If that does not make sense, just ask! I love explaining why we cant yet expect Olivia to do the things of a almost 5 month old. However, when she is 18 month we fully hope and expect her to be mostly caught up with her full term baby counterparts and her actual and adjusted age should just merge together.
A beautifully happy baby! In just a few short minutes and 5 shots later.....
Then the next few days after shots are basically like this...
Poor Baby!
At her appointment, we did fine out she was nearing 10 pounds and now my guess is that she has surpassed 11 pounds! Our little 4.5 month old baby girl is in 3 month clothes and getting close to moving to 6 month clothes. I know we say it a lot, but she loooves to eat! She is taking anywhere from 26-32 ounces of milk most days, definitely at the top end of what she should be getting! She loves to grow and we love watching her grow!
One thing is for sure, her mommy and daddy love her some kind of big!!
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