Heads Up!

Anonymama asked about Peeper holding her head up in the diaper photos and my reply got a little long, so I figured it merited its own post:

Oh yeah, she's got that head-control thing pretty much licked.

The only time she has any trouble with it is in a supine (is that right? on her back) position.

If we put her down on her tummy, she can push up and usually rolls over. We don't do that much, though, because it really pisses her off.

I figure she's read the sleep-safety manuals, and thinks we're trying to kill her.

She's also got it under control if we're carrying her around in a prone position ("flying") but we don't even attempt to carry her prone without her head supported.

She also has some trouble bringing her head with her when pulled up from supine to sitting (we do that a lot, to practice) but we noticed last night that she was doing much better with it, and a time or two, kept it pretty much in line with her body all the way up!

I've read that, eventually, she'll lean forward when lifted like that, and actually lead with her head, but she's got a ways to go on that one.

It seems that, according to this chart, her gross motor skills are, if anything, a bit advanced.

I'm especially glad to see this now that the surgery is a reality, because we're assuming that she's going to lose some developmental ground, or at least "tread water" while she's recovering, and I would think that the gross motor skills would be the area most likely to be affected.

In particular, I would expect her to lose a fair amount of "core muscle" strength from the chest incision itself, and from having to take it easy while it's healing.

It will be interesting to see what happens with her other recently-acquired skills, and whether they are affected by the down-time as well.

We plan to ask the surgeon about that, not so much because we're worried about it - we know she'll catch up - but just so we can know whether we ought to adjust our "milestone" expectations a bit more, in addition to the month that we're tacking on to everything, to make up for her prematurity.

I plan to give a full report on her skills and latest tricks when I write about her four-month checkup later this week, so stay tuned!