What's My Age Again?

“I can’t believe they’re four months old already! We try to take newborn pictures when they’re around 10 days old, so they’re really too old at this point. Let’s shoot for doing six-month pictures.”

So went a text conversation with a photographer when I inquired about doing newborn pictures with the Tagalongs.

I started to explain to her that, while the Tagalongs were 12 weeks old chronologically, they were only a few days old in terms of size (between 7 and 8 lbs) and development. But Little CH had been particularly c-o-l-i-c-k-y that week (if we spell it, it doesn’t happen), and I didn’t have the energy to argue, so I just sighed with disappointment and responded “OK.”

A few days later, another friend asked if the Tagalongs were starting to smile—a 6- to 12-week milestone. Then another friend inquired about another milestone that escapes my sleep-deprived mind at the moment. “No,” I responded to each while feeling the tendrils of frustration creep in.

Parents of multiples are told to ignore that feeling when it comes to the development of our babies. Because so many of our babies are born prematurely, we get to experience developmental delays with them. That’s why we speak in terms of actual versus adjusted, or corrected, age when talking about our babies’ development. While other people’s two-monthers are doing X, Y, and Z, our two-month premature littles aren’t doing X, Y, and Z until four months or so. The neonatologists and nurses, NICU case managers, early intervention therapists, and pediatricians tell you time and time again not to compare your preemies to “regular” babies, but it’s really dang hard not to—especially when family and friends ask.

So that’s why I’ve written this short post—to educate my readers (reader?) about what CH and I are experiencing with the Tagalongs. And because we’re still trying to wrap our brains around this whole actual-versus-adjusted-age concept, I’m letting someone else explain it for me. The following article does a really good job of simply and clearly explaining the concept. What’s even better is that the example it gives directly applies to our 28-weekers. Just ignore the grammatical errors. Enjoy!

http://www.unmc.edu/media/mmi/jackson/TIPS-Intro/Understanding_Corrected_Age.pdf