Protection versus overprotection?

All children are precious, but when they arrive early and give you a real scare, I think you cling to them even more tightly. Sometimes your need to protect them is very real - if, for example, they are prone to lung infections following chronic lung disease, or have other medical issues which require them to avoid anyone likely to be infectious. KEMH recommended that I avoid taking Talia into shopping centres and other crowed places for the first few months, and that she not attend childcare for her first two years, as she had struggled to breath for so long and came home after 11 weeks of CPAP with O2 and another week just with oxygen via PBF. Fortunately for us, she has had no lung or chest problems since discharge, but I know other prems who are in and out of hospital every winter and come down with bronchiolitis as easily as some kids come down with a cold. So precautions are important, and despite what your family has to say on the subject, if you want your child kept away from Granny because she has a cold then your decision should be respected!

However, as the years pass and our little ones grow and amaze us that anyone so tiny could come so far, sometimes I wonder if we maintain that sense of vigilence for longer than we need to. A while ago, a friend told me of a colleague, a psychologist, who had done some research involving premature children. Her unofficial summary of his findings was “The kids were normal but the parents were not.” From what I remember her saying, he had not found evidence that premature birth lead to increased psychological problems - but he did feel that the parents of those ex-prems were much more anxious than parents of full term kids, and worried about their kids much more than parents of other kids he had studied. When I mentioned it to some other prem mums, they admitted they had noticed it themselves - for example, if their child had flu-like symptoms they would tend to panic and go directly to A&E rather than waiting to see a GP.

After that conversation, I decided I really needed to consciously try not to overprotect my prem. I am relaxed about the common cold and “normal” germs - and thankful for a child with a great immune system despite her unpromising start. After a year and a half, I started using childcare. But some things are harder. I read an article in a parenting magazine last year entitled “cottonwool kidlets”.

The level of protection your child needs will change as they grow older. Obviously very young children have no ability to determine danger so they rely on their parents to keep them safe, however the problem emerges when parents are unable to let go of their growing child and allow them to explore their own independence. Parents have to be careful about over-protecion because a child can pick up on separation anxiety and can also become anxious. And we know anxiety in early life can lead to anxiety and even depression in adulthood. Anxious children can become timid, shy and develop social phobias like a fear of meeting new people. This can be tough on them when they start school. Parents need to give children safe but effective opportunities to play and explore, and to learn to cope and self-soothe.

It all makes sense… but it’s not always easy from a parent’s perspective. My child is already much more timid than her peers and takes a long time to adjust to situations where there are crowds or she is separated from me. It might be just her personality and nothing to do with her prematurity, but either way I hope I can help her to grow more resilient, and to keep myself from becoming an over-anxious parent.

Fun in the backyard sun

I found these suggestions in a magazine and they are too good not to share, because it’s a list of ideas about having fun in your own back yard - perfect for a germaphobe premmie parent trying to avoid crowds! Especially good if you still need to entertain a toddler at the same time.

Hanging around
Tie a balloon by a string from the washing line and hit it with the tube from a cling wrap box.  No toddler?  Babies will still love watching colourful washing or ribbons blowing in the breeze or listening to wind chimes.

Messy but delicious
Melt some chocolate and take turns dipping pieces of fruit.  If it’s just you and the baby, looks like you get to eat all of it.

Nature lovers
Make a list of things to see or collect - a leaf, a flower, a feather, a spiderweb - then go for a walk to find it all.  If you don’t have a budding collector, put your prem in a baby carrier or cover the pram and go for a walk around the block to admire your neighbours’ gardens.

Bubbles
Toddlers will love to chase and pop bubbles (or catch them on another bubble wand); babies will just love to watch them drifting around.

BYO Teddy Bear
Spread a blanket, take out something nice to eat and drink, and enjoy a mini-picnic at home or in a nearby park.  Breastfeed or have some tummy time in the shade, if your baby is happy to do so.

Wet wet wet
Have fun with spray bottles of water (spray feet rather than faces), or put some bath toys in a water table or bucket of water (and supervise very closely).

Swings and slides

I think some days it is too easy to worry about your premature child, especially if they have had problems with their health at some point, and not give them the freedom to take the sort of risks other parents might take for granted.

My husband and I are not Olympic medal material. We were the sort of kids who always got picked last for school sporting teams. In spite of this, we’d really like Talia to be a life-be-in-it, have-a-go sort of child. Given her genetic inheritance and her prematurity, we figure it will take a bit of effort on our part to help her gain the confidence and the skills that we seemed to miss out on. So we’ve started by giving her experiences in the playground beyond what she might get if we worried too much.

Fortunately for us, she loves it! The swing is a daily delight and she shrieks with happiness as we push her until the chains of the swing are flying out almost horizontally. (I give thanks to the person who invented the bucket swing for toddlers!)

The park has a few slides, including a straight one about 5 foot high. Talia tolerated going down the slide on her bottom while holding my fingers. Then a couple of days ago I decided it might be interesting for her to go down on her tummy, feet first. It was slightly frightening to let her go down by herself the first time I did it - but she was exhilarated and couldn’t wait to do it over and over. Then she climbed back up the face of the slide, for the first time ever - and right up to the top at one point!

As you can imagine, she was very pleased with herself, almost as proud as I was!

At this rate it will be no time before she’ll be in the front carriage of the roller coaster at the show with her eyes open and both arms in the air. If my hair isn’t grey by then no doubt it will be soon after!

All (almost) clear

Talia finally had a hearing check at the audiologists today, following on from the one where she was too clogged up with a cold to be able to test properly.  It showed that although her eustachian tubes are “sluggish”, her hearing is within normal ranges.  They’ve recommended we go back in summer to confirm that the sluggish tubes are not a permanent problem.

Hoorah, one less thing on the list of potential problems! Although I’m sure selective deafness is only a matter of time…

A word in your ear…

At her 8 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment Talia was making very few consonant sounds, so we were told she would be given another hearing test.  Three months later we still hadn’t received our appointment, so I phoned the hospital to ask what was happening.  Less than 2 days later the audiology people were hastily offering us an appointment for early the following week (today).  Ho hum.

Unfortunately Talia currently has a cold, and the audiologist decided that this was likely to be blocking her ears at the moment.  She was able to determine that Talia hears loud noises (we knew this) but could not get down to the 20 decibel level they would be happy with.  We will need to return for a second appointment in a month’s time, a week before her 12 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment.

At the moment she does babble, and uses da, dee, ya, wa, ba and sometimes na, ma, ga.  Not to mention lots of “oooh!” which is very cute.  The only word in her vocabulary that I am certain of is “cat” but she does struggle to say it.  The audiologist said that, given her other delays, it’s likely that speech will also be delayed (so no surprises there!)  As long as she has no physical impediment (like a glue ear) to hearing then I’m really not too fussed.