Wednesday ramblings

Happy Wednesday! We had our Birth to 3 physical therapist come over today and we worked a lot on encouraging and teaching Gabriella to bring her hands to her midline. She placed Gabriella on her back on her play mat and she stayed on her back, looking up at herself in a tiny hanging mirror, and reached up to hit dangling toys. Her PT was very pleased with this behavior because it is more in line with what would be expected of a 4 month old baby. While Gabriella is technically almost 5 months old, her corrected age is only 7 weeks. She is doing really well hitting toys and kicking her feet, alternating between left and right, but now we have to work on encouraging her to bring her hands together as well as bringing her knees up towards her chest. While this is behavior that is pretty typical of full term babies, with preemies it is something that needs to be taught and encouraged.  Gabriella was born at only 26 weeks so she was never curled up inside of me- she still had plenty of room so her body never learned to curl up. Our PT gave me lots of tips on ways to play with her for homework!

Bring those knees up, baby!

Another thing we are tackling this week is getting Gabriella on a bit more of a schedule to get her sleeping a little better at night. She is still sleeping in our room in a pack and play bassinet and eventually we will move her into her own room in her crib.  The biggest issue we are having is that I am pretty sure Gabriella is smarter than us :) When we brought her home, anytime she made the smallest noise, one of us would run over to make sure she was okay, pick her up, snuggle with her, etc. At night, if she started fussing, I would reach over, lift her up, cuddle her and soothe her in our bed, and then put her back down.  Sometimes she would lie on my chest and fall asleep there. Well, last night she was fussy and crying so I picked her up and put her next to me in our bed. Wouldn't you know, she instantly was full of smiles, closed her eyes and would have been completely happy spending the whole night right there in between us. So, I am pretty sure the day has come that I have to start letting her try and soothe herself for a little bit before immediately picking her up.  We won't let her cry it out for a long period of time but I won't be so quick to pick her up, especially when I know she is dry, safe, and not hungry. We'll see how it goes, this little baby has me wrapped around her tiny finger!

We were able to get out for some great walks these past few days. Ironhorse Blvd is clear and we've used the jogging stroller which  has been great.  I also found that the public library has a "Bouncing Baby" music class a few times a week so we may check that out next week.

Hope this finds you all well!
xo,
Mary