Overstimulation of preemie and daycare

Simonsaysbaby

I posted on here quite awhile ago when getting ready to have my son, but am back with some questions.  I had my son at 32 weeks due to premature rupture of membranes.  He is now 5 weeks old (37 weeks gest).  He spent 3 weeks in the hospital and is now home.  We have been really careful about overstimulation.  As strongly directed by the doctors at Mayo, we greatly limit any rocking, patting, rubbing, and try and keep him in a quiet room and allow him time to himself sometimes.  We comfort him with pressure not pats and it really seems to work.  We have been avoiding large gatherings and do not pass him around for people to hold.  They told us this should continue until at least his due date of Dec 15.  We watch closely for signs of him being overstimulated like hiccups, sneezing, diverting gaze, or "stop sign hands."  When we notice these things we reduce his stims and it seems to really help.  I wear him in the Moby wrap whenever we are out in public and he zonks out and is very relaxed.  Part of our diligence with this is that our 9 year old was also born early but we had no education about overstimulation.  Looking back now, I see that so many of the issues we dealt with regarding him as an infant were related to overstims.  He still shows signs of having some sensory issues now.   He rocks a lot in the rocking chair when stressed, he is very bothered by seams and bumps in clothing, he hates brushing his teeth and washing his hair, doesn't like the water much at all, all signs of sensory issues.  We are hoping to make our new sons experiences different.  I have to put him in daycare on Feb 1 and am worried about how this will affect his stimulation.  There are about 7 other kids there, and he will be the youngest by about a year and a half.  Did any of you have worries about this?  How did you manage it?  Anyone else working hard to keep their preemies from being overstimulated?

hunt2005

I had not really thought about it at all until my mom came this week. They're 5 months old now, so well beyond their due date, but they got totally overstimulated the last couple days to the point of exhaustion. I would think a daycare provider would be better about this as schedules rule their lives normally, and my kids do SO much better on schedule. Maybe just talk to them and see if they have a quiet room your son can go to for a little while in between every feed where he can be awake but in a quiet environment?

Snorkel30

First congratulations! We share the same due date, and my son came at 33 weeks 3 days.

Second, thanks for posting this. No doctor ever told us any of this, and I'm not only a first time mom, but to a preemie, so I realize there's so much I don't know. And your post has been very informative. Thank you. 

I can't really offer any advice, our son will be home with us since my husband and I both work from home, so he will not go into daycare. But good luck, hopefully the other ladies can offer more advice!

lemen99

I think I would talk to your doctor about it. 

We didn't do daycare because of health reasons - Andrew did get overstimulated easily as an infant and he does have sensory issues now.  Because your baby was early I would avoid daycare if you can for health reasons alone, but I think that if you have to do daycare then he'll be ok, but it's less than ideal for health & probably stimulation.

damabo80

I'm actually thinking that by feb he should be ok in the stimulation department since he'll be about 2m adjusted. We were told the same things by the nicu staff about stimulation, and they said that once she reached term, you could pretty much interact with her as a term baby.