<<sigh>>

So, if you remember, at Piper’s 12-month well-child visit last week, we could answer “yes” to all the developmental questions asked by our pediatrician.

All, that is, except one.

We have been working, tirelessly, on getting Piper to move from laying down to sitting F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  And to no avail.

She’ll pull to stand.

She’ll move from sitting to laying.

For heaven’s sake, she’ll go from laying to standing.

But sitting to standing?

Ha.

To back up a few steps, Piper was a preemie.  Because of this, she gets “credit” for her prematurity.  So, now that Piper’s 12 months old, we look at her as a 10 month old.  It puts her a little higher on the growth chart, which helps her tremendously.  They like to stop adjusting as soon as possible, and most preemies catch up well on growth fairly quickly.  They’ll allow the adjustment until her second birthday, so we still have some time there, but she’s definitely not caught up.  It also means that all of her milestones are based on her adjusted age as well.  A lot of the things Piper is doing are 12-month skills, so, although they are still adjusting for her size, her doctors are starting to “wean” herself off adjusting in developmental areas.

Anyway, because she was a preemie, she also has some tonal issues that we fight regularly.  Continually.  All.  The.  Time.  She likes to be straight, because when babies spend more time in the fetal position before they’re born, they learn to curl.  If they never had to curl, they use their muscles to extend instead.  Piper was pretty small when she was born, and more the size of a 29- to 31-weeker instead of the 32-weeker that she was.  And, on top of that, I had a lot more amniotic fluid than I should have because of her duodenal atresia, so she had even more space to move around in without having to curl. 

All this to say, Piper doesn’t like to bend, and it’s keeping her from moving into a sitting position on her own.

My question is this—To any of you parents with a preemie, did you have these issues?  If so, how did you combat it?  How did you little ones actually learn to sit?  We’re moving on from the “correct” way to do it, because I think it’s more important to grant her that independence than to focus on the “approved” way of getting there.  I don’t care how she gets there, we just want her to get there.  Any suggestions???

Okay, just ‘cause, I can’t resist this picture of her pulling to stand on Duncan.  I’m sure he’s glad his hair isn’t any longer.  And so am I- I pull enough hair out of her mouth after these experiments as it is...