L’il Aussie Prems is proud to sponsor Australia’s first award to recognise and celebrate the dedication of individual volunteers within the local premature baby community. LAP is seeking nominations from around Australia of “local premmie heroes” – the ordinary yet extraordinary people who give up their time to support the families of premature babies both during their hospital stay and afterwards, doing everything from sewing tiny clothing for very low birth weight babies to setting up local playgroups for prematurely born children to organising fundraising for research into the causes of premature birth.
As a community of parents, we understand the premmie journey and how hard the road can be. We want to recognise and pay tribute to those people who go out of their way to make things easier for other families travelling that road.
Nominations of local premmie heroes can be made via the L’il Aussie Prems website at www.lilaussieprems.com.au/hero. Nominees do not need to have any premature children of their own.
Nominations open Friday 20th February 2009 and close on Thursday 30th April 2009. Details of the winners will be announced in May 2009
I decided to put together a new video of Ronan as he is 3 years old (well almost).
You can view his video below
Well Ronan has a new baby brother as of the 28th October 2008.
Tristan was born at 36+6 weeks due to a hind water leak, so suspected PPROM and also my white cell count kept going up. He was born weighing 3.1kgs so MUCH bigger than Ronan. He is putting on the weight SO easily and is a very calm and relaxed baby, just like Ronan so we are very lucky.
Here are a few pics of Ronan’s new little brother.
Ronan was born early at 27 weeks gestation and whilst he has exceeded in his height and weight (he has always been a good eater) he does have one thing setting him back. He was diagnosed with Sensory Intergration Problems about 8 months ago. He attends early intervention weekly and has done so since being diagnosed.
Ronan has always been a very active little boy but when he was 2yrs old i felt that something was up. He was overactive and wanted to touch EVERYTHING and anything he could. He also was behind in speech and he has always been slow reaching all his milestones. I knew at his age the whole toddler thing comes into it BUT it just frustrated us so much with how he just wouldn’t sit down, he couldn’t even read a book with us for longer than 4 seconds. We thought maybe he was showing signs of ADHD but rather than jump to any conclusions we decided to have him assessed. My local MCHN got us into an appointment with children services in our area and after being in the assessment for 10mins we were advised that Ronan had sensory issues due to his prematurity. It was such a relief to know that we had an answer to what seemed like more than just toddler age.
If you are wondering what sensory intergration problem is and if your premature baby might have it here is a list of what the common signs are: (this is not to scare you but if you see any of these signs in your premmie baby please do have an assessment by a professonal to ease your mind).
• Out of proportion reactions: over or undersensitivity to touch, sounds, sights,
movement, tastes, or smells
• Problems with vestibular (movement) and proprioceptive senses (body awareness)
• Bothered by particular clothing fabrics, labels, waistbands, etc.
• Avoids or excessively craves intense movement — slides, swings, bouncing, jumping
• Resists grooming activities such as brushing teeth and washing hair
• Avoids foods most children enjoy
• Gets dizzy easily-or never at all
• Seems clumsy or careless
• Often “tunes out” or “acts up”
• Poor attention and focus
• Uncomfortable in group settings
• Very high or very low pain threshold
• Squints, blinks, or rubs eyes frequently (may have an undiagnosed vision problem)
The ones i have bolded are the common problems Ronan has. He has quite a few and that is why we attend early intervention. Apparently this is a common thing in early premature babies yet i had never heard of it before. I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you feel like your struggling with your toddler if they were born early.
Please let us know if your child has been diagnosed with this sensory issue. It would be good to know that we are not alone!
Well the local newspaper.
We had photos taken for the local paper as you would have read just below and they ended up using one of the pictures from that shoot for the news of my “Local Hero” award. I just LOVE the photo they chose and he looks gorgeous, well of course i think so because i am his mum!
Ronan is going for his pre op appointment next Monday for his operation coming up. There is no date booked yet but it is all happening. He will be having his tonsils and adnoids removed and to be honest i can’t wait! He is not sleeping the best of late and you can tell that he really struggles at times to breathe whilst asleep. He will be a totally different child once they have been removed. I won’t be able to recognise him without the big black bags under his eyes which he has had for SO long i cannot remember seeing a photo of him without them. He will have bundles of energy which he already has now so look out mum and dad!
I will let you know how his pre op appointment goes and whether we are told when his operation will be. It is a little nerve wracking but i actually feel a lot better about this operation compared to when he had his hernia operation before he left NICU.
Everything is full steam ahead for us and i cannot wait!
Ronan is now walking around everywhere. He occasionally crawls but would prefer to walk. Whilst he is great with walking and his balance is incredible he still faces many hurdles with walking. Being born premature was a fight to begin life and what an amazing journey we have had. Ronan has been attending physio since he was 6 months “corrected” due to low muscle tone due to his premature birth. Ronan has taken a long time to reach many milestones, sitting was the longest one to reach but we finally got there.
Ronan was walking a long furniture for i think 7 months before he finally let go. Those premmie fighting instincts finally kicked in and he was a free man! He took his first step without support at 18 months corrected. To be honest i had no idea how much longer it would be before he would then one day he tried and has never looked back since. It was the proudest moment of our lives to see the look of excitement on his face.
Whilst he loves walking and the more he walks the more exercise his muscles get he still cannot bend his knee’s to pick something off the floor without holding onto support. His muscle tone is once again letting him down and we are forever trying to built that strength up by helping him to walk up stairs which is a real struggle for him.
Winning the “Local Hero” award with my council i hope to help other parents with premature babies around my area. I have a few idea’s in the pipeline and hopefully they come to fruitation but it will be a long process one that i hope premmie babies and their parents will use should their babies have milestone delays.
Ronan still has a long way to go with his walking but each and everyday he is growing and learning so much. What else can a parent of an ex 27 week premature baby wish for?
Well Ronan and i were photographed yesterday for an article that is coming out most likely next week in the local 
paper on behalf of Bonnie Babes and their “Pride of the Nation” project. The photographer was here for about 30 minutes and we took many different angles of poses. Ronan had a blast and we even got him to manage a smile in quite a few of the photos!
I had a phone interview with the editor asking questions like; What was your experience of having a premature baby, what delays do premature babies have, what do they do to help the delays, did having a premature baby change your life etc..
Pride of the Nation
Pride of the Nation needs kids from Newborn to 15 years old to be Professionally Photographed and appear in the
Bonnie Babes Foundation Annual Book. This exceptional quality coffee table book will be something that each participant
will cherish in the years to come. Call 1300 693 686
The book is just beautiful and it is a credit not only to Bonnie Babes but also to the photographers that took the photos.
For more information visit www.bbf.org.au
Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i cannot believe they have started already!!
I was always under the impression that tantrums didn’t start until toddlers turned 2 years old, how wrong was i?
About a month ago Mr Ronan started throwing himself on the floor with his bum in the air crying because i wouldn’t let him go out the front when i went to check the mail. This was the moment that i realised my little man was changed forever. 
He has good days and very annoying days. He can throw a tanty out of nowhere for no reason but i do believe that teething might have some reason for the angry man of late. His fingers are always in his mouth, he is drooling A LOT (i have a fear of baby drool!) and he is always biting the lounge or anything that he can get a hold of.
We went to a party today and he kept annoying these poor people in the corner who were trying to push their baby on a swing. He kept getting in their way so i went and picked him up. He arched backwards to the point where i almost dropped him (he is 12kgs and has the strength of an ox), was crying his eyes out and was squirming to get away. I always seethed children that threw tantrums whilst out in public and i always felt SO sorry for the parents, now i am beginning to be one of them.
At home we just walk away from him when he is on the ground and he does not like it one bit but i want him to know that i will not stand for it and within 5 mins he is trying to crawl all over me as if to say “do you still love me”. It is very very cute but i do not give in to him.
The joys! This is only the beginning of the tantrum journey for me and i know it will probably get worse but at the end of the day he is only a toddler and doesn’t know how to handle anger just yet, but we are on the path to teaching him how too.
Thankgod he still sleeps 13 hour nights!
Ronan LOVES his new pool!
We got him his own pool for Christmas and he never wants to get out.
He could be shivering and have blue lips but wants to stay in there. When we think he has had enough he makes us chase him around the pool to try and grab him. Once we do finally get a hold of him and put the towel around him he throws a tanty!
It seems like we have a real water baby on our hands.
I am about to book Ronan in for swimming lessons as i believe it will help him with his muscle tone. Most early born premature babies have low muscle tone which is why many have to attend physio to help reach their milestones and Ronan is certainly one of those babies/toddlers.
A friend who’s little girl didn’t walk until she was 2 years old started swimming lessons and within 3 months started walking. I do not know if swimming honestly contributed to her walking but many physio’s recommend swimming as a form of strenghting your muscles so i really want to give it a go!
When we were visiting Ronan’s paedatrician last week he reminded me that i had to fill out an 18 month assessment form. The form wasn’t to be filled out until Ronan reached 18 months (corrected) because otherwise the assessment wouldn’t have been fairly marked.
Whilst going through the questionaire and everytime i ticked “no” to the questions my fear of more delays reared. The questions were along the lines of;
- When putting a crayon in your child’s hand and a piece of paper in front of them do they put the crayon tip on the paper (no - he tries to eat it)
- Does your child try to offer their reflection in a mirror the toy they are holding (no - he smiles at himself then looks at me)
- Does he use words put together BUT (not common words ie: no more, where’s dad, all gone), (they are the sort of things he says so maybe he doesn’t know how to speak!)
- Does your child go and get a toy or object when told to (nope - he can’t even walk let alone go and get a toy for me but he did hand me my towel after a shower)
It will be interesting to see the results. Because of the lack of “yes” responses to the questions i am sure he will have to have speech therapy, brain therapy, child therapy ALL dam therapies because he is slow!! Whilst questionaires are great so professionals can assess where a child is, being a parent of an ex premature baby i am now worried about there being a major problem. One thing with a questionaire is that it asks the questions about things your child should be doing but it doesn’t cover questions of what they actually are doing so whilst you may feel that your child is ahead in some things i now feel that Ronan is far more behind than the average 18 month old so the stress and worry has kicked in again. I wonder if premmie parents ever get a break from worrying?
