Rolling over at 18 days old??

JuliaJAG

I know that even full-term babies take quite a long time to roll over and preemies usually take longer... but the nurse today told us she watched our Jack roll over and also find his way out of his little Moses basket looking thingie in the isolette. Tonight I watched him halfway roll over and also several times raised his head better than most full-term newborns I've seen (I'm a newborn photographer so I see a lot of newborns). Jack is only 18 days old (should be 32 weeks on Thursday)!

Is this super-unusual, or have others of you had active/strong babies at such an early age? Not to be a chronic worrywart, but could this kind of early activity be the sigh of some kind of problem? I want to be proud of him and think he's advanced, but so many things aren't what they seem for preemies....

eta: high muscle tone... That's the term I was looking for. Apparently that can be a sign of CP?? I remember them saying when he was born that he had the muscle tone of a 32-weeker. At the time, I thought that was a good thing, but maybe it's the sign of a problem??

kelkel09

I remember both DD and DS moving all over and being very active when they were in their isolettes very early on. I think it is normal!

bhilyer

I remember my smaller guy being able to hold his head up very early on.  He would lift is head and turn to the other side.  Oddly enough he's the kid that hates tummy time and refuses to stay on his belly.

jacque_z

I'm going to say that I think a 32 wk preemie rolling over sounds odd to me but I'm no doctor.  I will tell you that my 26 weeker was born with very high tone.  If I remember right I think they said she had the tone of a 30-31 weeker.  Gradually over time, her tone evened out.  So I wouldn't worry too much about that.  I would keep track of her therapy appts with her PT/OT. 

JuliaJAG

Thanks, girls... I've been reading more about high tone and it seems that it usually involves the muscles being stiff? I haven't noticed stiffness/rigidity, but I'm going to ask the neonatologist about it this afternoon.  

jacque_z:

I'm going to say that I think a 32 wk preemie rolling over sounds odd to me but I'm no doctor.

That's what I thought too, and I didn't witness the full roll-over or the scooching out of his little containment thing, although I did watch him easily roll from being on his tummy to being on his side, then to almost on his back (but still on his side)... he also pushes off the ground with his legs while his diaper is being changed so that his butt is way up in the air. He still has no baby fat yet (he just hit 3 pounds the night before last) so it's quite interesting to see his muscular little legs at work! Anyway, I'm glad to hear there are other babies with high tone that had no related issues like CP.

haziedaze

Does this look familiar?

Henry was quite the escape artist. Sometimes it looked like he was doing downward facing dog pose with his tush in the air and face planted in his bed. My guess is what he's doing is normal, but I would ask the neo about his tone like you said. Usually CP doesn't show up until later though. Hoping he's just a wild man!

JuliaJAG

haziedaze:

Does this look familiar?

Henry was quite the escape artist. Sometimes it looked like he was doing downward facing dog pose with his tush in the air and face planted in his bed. My guess is what he's doing is normal, but I would ask the neo about his tone like you said. Usually CP doesn't show up until later though. Hoping he's just a wild man!

ROFL!!! Too cute, and yes, that does look familiar! BTW, every times see your cutie in your signature, it puts a big smile on my face. He's so cute and looks so happy!

urbanflowerpot

DS tried to climb out of the scale and nearly succeeded when he was around 33 GA. Don't worry, it wasn't "real" - if you know what I mean He didn't take off crawling down the NICU halls the following week