June 2006 - Premature babies and their corrected ages.

Zachary is 6 months old now. He was 10 weeks premature. Premature babies ages are strange though because although officially he is 6 months old from the date he was born it is only 4 months since his official due date. Premature babies ages are corrected for the period in time between their birth date and their due date until they are 2 years old. This is because although they are alive and out of the womb premature babies start to develop as a full term baby is expected to not from birth but from their due date. Between birth and their due dates they essentially pretend they are still inside and just curl up and sleep.

Part of the reason why the corrected age for premature babies is important is so that they are not expected to develop too fast and parents do not worry when it appears they are small or under developed for their age. The normal 9 month development check a baby has Zachary will have at 11 months. His corrected 9 month age. I hope this makes sense to everyone. This explains why Zachary does not look or act like a 6 month old baby (not most of the time anyway) but does look and act just like a 4 month old baby. I have to admit and say even I forget sometimes and perhaps expect too much of him. He soon lets me know he isn't ready though ! I get a sleepless night now and then with a tearful baby just to remind me!

These Photographs show how he has changed in 6 months

1 month old. (2 months premature). The teddy bear was bought by my best friend Helen. It was christened Zachary Bear. I though taking photographs every month with bear would help me see how he is growing and changing every month. Here at one month old he still has the red blotches on his slightly translucent skin and is smaller than the bear.

3 months old. Starting to fill out Zachary is as big as the bear is now.

5 months old. Alert and definitely bigger than bear now.

2 months old (1 month premature). Almost as big as the bear but is still very thin limbed.

4 months old. He has gained in weight and developed chunky legs.

6 months old. Bigger than bear and a lovely healthy baby colour too!

Jumperoo !

Zachary has borrowed the jumperoo ! It was an instant hit ! Within seconds of finding himself suspended in this strange contraption he had realized that his favourite game of bounce while someone is holding him he can do all on his own in here. Boy does he bounce. Laughter and screeches can be heard the length of the house while he proceeds to worry his grandma to bits by bouncing so vigorously it looks as if he could injure himself. He doesn't seem to wear out either. The time limit is 15 min's and he screams when you take him out.

Here is a short movie clip of Zachary bouncing and laughing. This is definitely a good investment if you have an active baby who needs wearing out. We all watched anxious that with his dodgy tummy he would surely make himself sick shaking his insides up like that but no there was no more than the steady teething dribble we are getting used to. Amazing.

June 4th - Weather getting hotter, Zachary getting hot and sleepy.

June is turning out to be a very hot month so far. The weather forecast says we are in for a nice hot summer so we have switched to the 1tog light summer sleepbag. The heat and all the swimming and jumping is tiring Zachary out bless him. He kept yawning when I was trying to take these photographs. Today he slept for almost 18 hours. I think he tired himself out swimming and discovering the jumperoo yesterday. Growing and learning to move is hard work when you are only a baby.

June 6th - Learning to roll over

Not content with discovering how to addle your brain by jumping like a jack in a box Zachary has also discovered that his body twists which means he can start to roll over. If he is propped against a pillow he can lean forward and use his weight to twist himself onto his front. He discovered this trick this morning. It means I have to watch him every second now while he is on the bed as I don't want him all of a sudden ending up on the floor. He was really impressed with himself.

June - Baby weaning - learning to eat real food and sleeping better!

This Annabel Karmel book is great. It has recipes for baby food and meal planners. I am aiming towards him being able to eat a reduced version of whatever the rest of the family are eating at meal times so I wanted to start him off learning the tastes of some of the vegetables etc that we regularly use. The book is a great help as it has suggestions to for each stage of weaning. Babies love sweet vegetables like sweet potatoes and butternut squash which can be mixed with a variety of other things. Zachary loves Butternut Squash with pear. He also loves sweet potatoes but is not keen on cauliflower so I usually cheat and give him a spoon of something he likes then sneak a spoon of vegetables he isn't keen on into his mouth while he is busy chewing. He will get used to them eventually ! Annabel Karmel website

His favourites are fruit. He loves apples and pears ! The recipes are really simple and easy to make although in this hot weather being stood in the kitchen cooking pureed foods is not my idea of an ideal afternoon. He has settled into a nice afternoon nap as part of his daily routine now so its an good time to get things like this done. I am normally too tired at night to want to stay up and cook. What with baby laundry (babies generate so much laundry) cooking, cleaning etc by the time I am finished you can guarantee its time for him to wake up.

He has a really nice routine at the moment which has done him the world of good. The general tummy gripes and sickness has subsided and I am tempted to say that eating solid food in the last month has made all the difference. He sleeps so much better, all babies need sleep but his has often been restless before. Now when he is awake he is happy, playful, cheerful, less prone to being sick and I do think its because he sleeps better when he does sleep. He talks in his sleep sometimes which is very cute ! I know that Zachary has not been your ideal text book baby. I know that he has and is very hard work at times and very demanding of my time (aren't all babies to a certain degree). I know that with Zachary this has been partly down to him being premature and a bit poorly but I think now 6 months in we both know each other very well. I am accustomed to his needs and we have established a good relationship. I love being his mummy !

Go to lilypie.com to create a cute age ticker banner.

Found this cute website where you can enter your baby's date of birth and choose a style and you get this cute little banner - called a ticker.The website is by lilypie.

June 12th - Talking and Baby Massage

Some days he is really talkative. He loves this weeble pirate that I bought for him from Boots. It has a lovely bell sound that it makes when it wobbles. He has learnt that if he hits it he can make the pirate wobble and the bell jingle. He spent 20 minutes trying to inch worm his way up to it just so that he could wobble it. He talked to it the entire time. He was exhausted by the end and promptly fell fast asleep again straight after his morning bottle. Hard work all this wriggling and talking.

Every time Zachary has a bath or goes into the pool he gets a baby massage afterwards. While we were in hospital I was taught by the sisters and nurses that one of the best things to use to replenish all the oils in baby's skin is pure and simple olive oil. I was also taught how to give baby massage and given lots of leaflets. We have a relaxing massage CD too. He loves his massage especially on his feet. Its great for his skin and helps develop good muscle tone. Apparently it also develops a sense of positive body image later in life. [Kalamata Olive Oil]

June 14th - Poor Zach - today was an unhappy, sick day

He looked so sweet in his slogan suit that I had to take a few pics. He was fine at that point. His teeth are hurting him which isn't nice but he seemed ok. Not every day can be a good day though. On the whole Zachary is getting much better. At least these days you can put him down to play on his back or stomach and he isn't necessarily going to be sick. Most of the time anyway. Today however he was violently sick twice. Unfortunately all over his Grandma. He went through 3 sets of clothes as did Grandma. I think it is was a combination of the heat, teething, a new food and interrupted sleep. We had power cuts and the building alarms started to go off waking him from his usual afternoon nap. He really doesn't like it when his sleep is interrupted. But I guess we can all be grumpy if we get woken up when we want to be asleep. A baby is no different.

Teething can be a real nuisance too. You can see that it bothers them when their mouths are all red and sore and their little cheeks are bright red too. I also decided to try a new fruit today and should have perhaps thought that rhubarb would be too acidic for his sensitive tummy. The result was he was really sick, unhappy. tired and tearful by the end of the day. At 11pm he was still awake and crying. Bless him. Eventually I managed to get him to settle. I just hope he sleeps well tonight so that his tummy has time to settle down. Otherwise it will be a long night for all concerned ! No more rhubarb!

June 15th - Tired Mum & Baby

5:30 am the world should be asleep. Unfortunately Zachary continued to be sick during the night and by 5:30 wanted his morning feed. He was probably low on calories and feeling dehydrated. Thankfully he slept through to 10am after a bottle. He has continued to be sick since then. Yesterday I thought it was a variety of things but I realise that it is probably because I have tried to see if I can wean him off the SMA Lactose Free and give him some normal formula milk. I have been giving him one spoon of SMA Gold in one of his bottles of LF during the day. It is obviously enough to unsettle his little tummy. He has gone back to being continually sickly and won't keep anything down at all. We have ploughed through 12 muslin squares and 8 bibs in the space of 6 hours today. He has continued to be sick then nap because he is shattered all morning. Bless him. back to the LF and hopefully his tummy will settle and we can get back into our routine.

June 15th - Uncle Bill

This is my Uncle Bill, Zachary's Great Uncle. Bill is my Mum's eldest surviving brother. Today unfortunately he had two severe heart attacks. He has been taken from Worcester Royal up to Birmingham to a special Cardiac Hospital. Bill adores children who seem to adore him in return. Children and animals seem to instinctively know when someone is a lovely person at heart. It is certainly true with Bill. Zachary loves him. He was quite happy feeding Zachary his bottle and they both looked really comfortable. Baby's bottle feeds is clearly something Bill remembered doing. He told me that he fed many of his younger siblings their bottles from time to time to help his Mum out. We are all praying to God for Bill to be ok.

June 17th - Average Daily routine

Early morning story time with the Bear Snores On

June 20th - Visit to park then feeding time at the zoo!

Zachary's very first time on a swing. We had to tie him into the swing with a muslin square. (Liz's idea - 101 uses for a muslin square!) He loved it. The roundabout was fun too. He even enjoyed sitting on my knee on the big swings. Lovely sunny day !

This week has been tiring for everyone in the family. Uncle Bill is still in hospital waiting for his operation. Mum and Dad have been at the hospital every day from lunch time to very late. I have been trying to help out by making sure dinner is cooked for them to come home to. It means cooking for and feeding Zachary and doing dinner then trying to get him to bed without making too much mess - baby land is pretty messy. Good job that he is such a good boy at meal times. !

He loves veggies and at the moment seems to like the green food more than the desert. Hopefully if he gets to like the flavours now it will mean less problems getting him to eat his veggies later on down the line. Apparently the foods babies taste in the early stages help to develop their taste palette for later on. Since he was doing so well I decided to try letting him munch something more solid. It stuck in his throat he coughed then was sick everywhere. The whole of his dinner. We took him swimming to clean up then sat down for a second go about an hour later. Bless him. (before & after pics)

June 28th - Finding your feet.

Last night was the first time that I have seen Zachary touch his feet. He spent about 20 minutestugging at his socks and touching his feet through his socks. Today while I was trying to get cute photographs of him in my favourite blue suit with these rabbit slippers he started to want to touch them. The rabbit slippers were part of the Christmas present that we were given at the hospital on Christmas Day. He has only just grown big enough to try them on. He looked so sweet. Finding your feet is an important stage of development. I have also noticed him feeling his ears and hair. He likes to touch the back of his head where I kiss him. It is as if he is just realising that all these sensations he feels are connected to him. It is so fascinating to watch his world opening up every day.