Session Sneak Peek: Twins

Some of my favorite treatment sessions are with twins...and when they’re babies? Oh man, be still my heart.

In this post you’ll meet Baby C and D, twins born 13 weeks premature. Their chronological age is 4 months but adjusted age is 1 month. They were referred for EI services upon discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and automatically qualified due to birth weight less than 1000 grams. If you know me, you know that these are some of my absolute favorite families to work with because of my NICU passion

Generally with these families, the focus is on educating family/caregiver about typical developmental milestones. I’m also on high alert for any indicators for sensory processing difficulties.

This is an example of a pretty simple “check in and provide strategies” type of session. When I have babies this young, 9 times out of 10 the babies are napping, about to nap, feeding, or about to feed so there might not be a ton to talk about or time to observe. I’m also very conscientious because many parents like to use naptime to catch up on sleep or get things done around the house so I always offer a shorter session if they’d like to take advantage when the baby (or in this case - babies) are sleeping.

There are two key elements in this case I’d encourage you to think about: 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗙𝗦𝗣 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀? And, 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗺 𝗜 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀? Hint: think about prematurity and NICU stay...

P.S. with babies this young it’s almost a guarantee that we’ll talk about tummy time. This week at @the.real.ots.of.ei we are talking all about tummy time so go check it out for more information