Going Home - Your Baby's Development
Your Baby's Development
Being born preterm, staying in the neonatal unit for a long time or any other health problem can slow down your baby’s development.
Try not to compare your baby to other babies. It is important to know that:
- Your baby’s development is based on their corrected age during the first two years of life.
- Most preterm babies do ‘catch up’, but in their own time, usually by the time they are 2 years corrected age.
Preterm babies need more time
Preterm babies need more time and care.
Early on, babies have limited eye contact and facial expressions but they will still need to be looked at and spoken to, to take care of their emotional needs and to help their social development.You will find that they will become more alert and responsive over time. They will spend more time awake.
Parents have a really important role in supporting your baby’s development. Babies need a warm and loving home environment with opportunities for rest and play.
Remember!
Talking, playing and affectionate touching will develop your baby’s cognitive, language and motor development.
In the early days, baby will use their behaviours to help show you the type of play and social interactions that they enjoy, remember to watch their cues to know how much they are able for.
See ‘Understanding your baby’s behaviour signals’ and ‘Knowing when your baby is ready for play, rest and feeds’ LINK.
When learning new skills, some preterm babies will need additional encouragement, as they can be less adventurous than a term baby. They can be more hesitant when attempting new tasks, e.g. trying to roll over or sit. If your baby’s progress seems a little slow, talk to their Paediatrician, Public Health Nurse (PHN) or General Practitioner (GP).
Key areas for development
Growth is a very important part of your baby’s development and will need to be monitored carefully. Your baby will need regular weight checks with your PHN or at your local Health Centre/Primary Care Centre. See ‘Feeding and growth at home’.
Your baby learns and develops using the following seven senses:
- Touch
- Smell
- Taste
- Hearing
- Seeing
- Proprioception -this is your baby’s sense of knowing where their body parts (legs, arms) are relative to each other. This sense strengthens your baby’s coordination skills.
- Vestibular (for balance and posture). Your baby’s vestibular sense gives them information about if they are upright, upside down or sideways. It helps allows your baby to move smoothly and in a co ordinated way.
Babies use the information and sensations from these senses to learn about themselves and about their world, what tastes nice, what feels nice, what position the are placed in. This supports language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem solving skills and social interaction.
Most activities that we do require us to combine information from many different senses at the same time. For example, when they are eating, a toddler uses touch, vision and taste to explore the texture of their food, their proprioceptive sense to coordinate their body to bring the food to their mouth, smell and taste to identify the different types of food and their vestibular sense to sit upright during their meal.
As they grow, children learn how to take in and process all this sensory information at the same time and focus their attention on particular sensations while ignoring others. This is known as Sensory Integration. Some children have difficulty receiving and processing incoming sensations making everyday tasks at home and developmental play activities challenging.
Be aware that these signs can be part of usual toddler development. However, if they are persisting beyond when you would expect, or are beginning to interfere with your child’s learning abilities or daily family life, seek advice from their PHN or GP.
- Overly or under reactive to touch, movement, sights or sounds.
- Unusually high or low activity levels.
- Unable to sit still or stay concentrated on playing.
- Poor eye contact, poor listening skills.
- Easily distracted, poor attention for tasks.
- Delays in speech, motor skills or academic abilities.
- Problems with coordinating movements and poor body awareness, clumsy or awkward, falling a lot.
- Difficulty learning new tasks.
- Difficulty with tasks which require using both hands together.
- Displaying immature social skills.
- Displaying frustration or lack of control.
- Having difficulty calming oneself once wound up.
If you have concerns, contact your baby’s PHN or GP.
