Post NICU – Physiotherapy #3 @6 months corrected age

She is actually 9 months chronologically (counting from the day she was born). I feel like she is neither 9 months old nor 6 months old. She is somewhere in between.

We just came back from our vacation back home with the whole family. D. was exposed to various people and different feelings. I can feel she has changed and developed a lot during this very short period of time.

At this stage, we have a booster seat and we have been practicing sitting on it. We also started giving her solids.

In the 3rd session, our physiotherapist checked D. from the aspects below:

Physical development:

Rolling over: D. was rolling over to both sides.

Sitting: She was able to sit unassisted.

Crawling: We were asked whether she made any attempt to go into a crawling position either from: 1- sitting position to crawling OR 2- tummy position to crawling. She was able to get herself up to four-point kneeling position (support on the knees and hands) for a few seconds and start pushing herself from the knees. (You will know when you baby does this, it is so fun to watch)

Homework: To guide her to crawling position she asked us to:

a. Place objects a little far from her when she is in a sitting position so she wants to grab them by going into crawling position.

b. When on tummy position, place a sturdy/stable object at the height of her chest and place some toys on it so she goes into crawling position to pick them up.

Language development:

Babbling: During the session, D. did not babble, however this time around I had a video of her babbling. Over the vacation, she did lots of babbling especially to her auntie. She also started laughing out loud frequently when you did funny faces to her😊

Social development:

Likes to play and be played: D. loved playing peek-a-boo. It was her favorite game and it burst her into laughter.

Cognitive (learning and problem solving) development:

Responding to her name: D. has been responding to her name for a couple of months now.

Passing things from one hand to another: D. did not do this at this stage. It came a bit later. We were told there is nothing to worry and that we should keep letting her play with objects.

Dropping one toy after taking another one: When I was asked this question, I realized I never paid attention to this specific behaviour so we tried together. When she was holding a toy, the physiotherapist gave her another one. She immediately dropped the existing toy and took the new one. Apparently, this is how babies are supposed to respond to it at this stage.

I was more relieved and homework started to be easier on me mentally. It was more for supporting her development in the best possible way rather than compensating for the possible deficiencies she might have.