One twin behind

Hi all. Few questions..Devin(baby A, who is the smaller one) seems to be ahead of Dylan with holding his head up(not at all floppy) and just being more active & alert. Dylan's issue is he has decreased muscle tone and is still floppy, although he can hold his head just a little bit. He is "rag doll" like. Now I know they are 2 separate people and wont always be at the same pace but from doing research online(I know, bad call), I have come across terrifying things that I cant even manage to type out. Has anyone experienced something similar? I know with preemies that they are usually behind but from what I have read when putting in Dylan's symptoms, I am petrified at the possible causes are. Im not sure how to distinguish between a "preemie thing" or something totally serious. I may even request an MRI for him at the next DR appointment bc I am freaking out. :unsure:

Someone please tell me you had a similar issue and that I need to calm down lol

 

How premature were your boys? My girls were early and my baby B has surgery at birth that they expected to cause her significant delays. So far? She's actually been my advanced kid in physical development. Her sister is more verbal and emotive, though. It's pretty neat.

I wouldn't worry until your ped does. it's tough to say this not seeing age vs prematurity, though.

 

How early were your boys? Adjusting for prematurity is HUGE, especially at the age they are right now.

 

They were 8 weeks early and will be 2 months on the 8 th

 

8 weeks is HUGE at this age. I wouldnt worry. My boys were only 3 weeks early and William my smaller guy was ALWAYS about a month behind in milestones then Nathaniel. He still is and they are 20 months

 

OK, so they are zero. That means they don't need to be doing anything but eating, sleeping, and dirtying their diapers. So I would call D right on track, not behind at all. It is way way way too early to worry.

 

So, basically they shouldn't even be born yet, right? I wouldn't even begin to worry about head control yet. :hug: It is hard to remember to take the prematurity thing into consideration, but it is so true - and will save you a lot of freak-out moments. :hug:

 

Thanks ladies Its very difficult not to freak bc once we noticed Devin holding his head up(totally unsupported btw)we looked at Dylan and noticed he is still very floppy and very lethargic. We had a DRs appointment and were told he has decreased muscle tone and once I put that into google, CP came up and possible brain damage, etc. It shocks us that Devin has such good head control already considering he is "zero" and shouldn't be doing that at all. Being a new mom and having preemies isnt easy and every little thing that seems out of the norm is going to freak me out lol hopefully its just that hes behind Devin and its nothing serious

 

+1 to PP's.... it's wayyyy too early to be concerned! They are just age newborn now, adjusted age is always what you go by for prematurity. And even so, it's so difficult having 2 kids same age bc you DO compare them. When if you only had one, you wouldn't even notice half the stuff. So I was told to stop comparing and worrying! My DS is more advanced, like quite a bit more than my DD. I was worrying about it but then a nurse finally pointed out that she DOES hit all of her milestones (for adjusted age) she just does it more laid back than he does. He'll roll 4x to her 1x. That doesn't mean she's behind....just means HE's advanced right now.

So don't worry.......they are definitely both on track! Hope that helps!

 

Just like everyone else said, don't worry about it, it's too early. My daughter was holding her head since birth but for my son it took about 3 months to be able to hold his head, and they were born at 37 weeks 5 days. He just has a huge head, so it took him a while to be able to control it, plus he seems more relaxed and laid back type of personality. He's 11 months now, he's crawling all over, climbing up on stairs and trying to take his first steps. Like everyone else told you before, try not to compare them, although it's hard to do, I do it also, but lately I became more relaxed about it.

 

It is so hard to not compare the two or to others even. I went through worry moments and mine were born at 38 weeks. What we've noticed as the twins have gotten a little older is that DD will hit a milestone before DS, but then he will hit other milestones before DD. It's back and forth with those two but before 6 months DS was doing EVERYTHING well before DD. Just give it time. It's so hard but don't research anything on the Internet! If you have genuine concerns then talk to your pedi but you will most likely be told the same thing that these ladies have already told you. Good luck!

 

I agree with the others about it being really too early to tell. My Twin B is and was floppy compared to his brother. He is at least a month behind his twin in all areas of development. We had him assessed and he was behind on the 'normal' milestones. That was at about three months. He was reassessed for progress at six months and they said he was fine. Reassessed again at a year and they took him off their books. He is still a floppy child but that hasn't affected his ability to walk, run, etc. And I have to say he is the most giggly, happy and funny kid I have ever met. I'm sure your boy will be fine. Don't google because I came up with all the same answers that your getting and it freaked me out. Good Luck

 

Thanks ladies! I know I shouldnt compare but its just so hard not to lol we have a dr's appointment today so I will be asking some questions hopefully to clear my head.

 

Put me down for having one floppy twin! My girl will barely hold her head up and has always been kind of floppy, while our boy has been holding up his head great since birth.

 

My twins were 6w4d early and are now 13 months almost 14 months old and are finally catching up. Try and remind yourself they are really developmentaly not suppost to be here yet. I know its soooo hard to not compare, I do it all the time but they are and you have to always remember that adjusted age it really does matter.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Having just gone through two months of worrying about the exact thing you are worrying about, I'll add my voice to the others: try not to worry. As the PPs have said, it looks like, instead of one baby being behind, one baby is just ahead! But if you're anything like me, you'll continue to worry, so here's a quick synopsis of our situation. Our Twin A, Jack, has always been developmentally about a month or so behind his sister, Emme. He also is floppy, took longer to hold up his head, hated tummy time, refused to push up on his arms, and I could feel that his muscle tone was much different from his sister's. We had them evaluated by Early Intervention (always a possibility for you, by the way -- it's free, and they'll come out to your house with a team to check the babies out on all fronts) at four months and both seemed fine in the eyes of EI. At their six month appt., the pedi finally expressed concern with both Jack's rapid head growth and his difficulty in holding up his head while on his stomach (he was 5 months adjusted at the time, BTW). Before that, she had seemed unconcerned and brushed things off, attributing them to his preemie status. She wanted to see us back in a month to check on his head growth (it was at 75% percentile while the rest of his body was at 25% and that was up from 18% at his 3 month check up). Of course I went home and googled, found Hydrocephalus, and made my husband call back the next day to talk to the doctor about getting an MRI. She referred us to a Pediatric Neurologist first, who scared the bejesus out of me -- she's the one who brought up Cerebral Palsy and a possible stroke in utero. She also said he was hypotonic (low muscle tone). More googling followed. From that moment on I was sure he had cerebral palsy and after a certain amount of soul searching decided to go forward with the MRI, despite the fact that the idea of him being sedated worried me to death. The MRI was completely negative and the neurologist said that he was behind due to preemie status, size of his head, and some issues learning to use his arms -- nothing that physical therapy and occupational therapy won't help, hopefully, which starts next week through Early Intervention (they come out to our apartment to do it -- amazing).

Here are the lessons I learned from this experience that I would like to pass on to you:
1. Some babies have low tone. Despite what you read on the Internet, it's not always something horrible causing it -- some babies just have low tone. Two of the therapists who came out with the EI team the second time said they were both diagnosed as low tone as babies and both were active in sports, dance, etc. -- they said they had never known that there was anything different about them. Most babies just learn how to compensate differently for their tone.
2. Not to sterotype, but a lot of pediatric neurologists are apparently alarmists. After my experience with our neurologist, I had three different moms tell me that they had similar situations where the worst case scenario was presented to them and everything turned out to be okay. If you end up getting a referral from your pediatrician, keep this in mind.
3. For us, the MRI turned out to be not such a big deal, and I worried for nothing. Usually what they give is Chloral hydrate, orally, and it's a very light sedative -- my son actually woke up after about thirty or forty minutes, right when they were ready to move him into the big tube thing, and they had to give him a second dose. He slept through the MRI and woke up in the elevator on the way back up to the room. We were in and out of the hospital in three hours. The scariest part of the whole ordeal was the horrendous sound the MRI made -- I had no idea and was not expecting it. We were able to stay with him, even went into the MRI room with him. If this is going to be something that worries you long-term, as I knew it was for me, consider going ahead with the MRI. Now I know I was worrying for nothing and I can focus on the physical therapy and not use so much energy catastrophizing.

I am prone to worry and anxiety, so having two babies the exact same age to compare against each other has been a challenge -- especially since our daughter is usually right on time with developmental milestones. I have started to relax more about this and just try and realize that they are both completely different. I wish the best for you and hope that you can relax a bit with all the posts reassuring you that all is well...having babies two months early must have been extraordinarily stressful -- you deserve some peace! Good luck.

 

Thank you for replying. CP is exactly what is freaking me out. As soon as I googled "low muscle tone", "hypotonia" came up which is a CP symptom, so of course I immediately panicked. The DR says Dylan "looks normal/ok" but if I want, I could go for an MRI to ease my mind. I am still unsure about whether or not to do it. He seems to be holding his head up more but I just have a feeling something may not be right. I could be totally wrong or I could be dead on. I would love to put them into them in EI and will be looking into it ASAP. Thank you again !

 

FirsttimeMomma, how are things? I was just reading this and I'm checking in to see what's happened since August.

Hypotonia can be a symptom of lots of things, but it can also just be a symptom of being born early!

Also, one of my girls started holding her head up in the hospital, and the other one started rolling over first - so every baby moves at a different pace (Even identical ones!)

Anyway, I just wanted to check in to see how they are doing, and how you're doing too!

 

TY for checking in Dylan seems to have improved his head control but is still floppy and weak. Prefers his right side and will be having PT soon. DR said there are no signs of CP or DS or any of the sort, thank god. Guess its a waiting game now as to how long it will take him to catch up etc.

 

My tiny twin was this way. She just didn't have the calories to build muscle as fast as her twin due to a heart defect. She is now pretty much caught up and only a bit behind in fine motor skills. Does he have any other Health issues?

 

Just the torticollis/floppiness. We will be taking him to a neuro soon so im praying we get some answers! Just hoping the floppiness/weakness is something he will grow out of and it isnt indicative of something else.