Hi Angela,
Our twin daughters, Charlotte and Grace, were born at 32 weeks on 2/1/05 at St. E's and are now 14 months. Our oldest (by 1 minute!) Charlotte has had the same issues with night terrors. They are caused when there is interuption between the sleep states, light to deep REM. We have tried everything to aleviate these ocurrances, from a sound soother, music CD lullabys, a warm bottle before bed. When she has them all we can do is comfort her by speaking softly and rubbing her back. It is best not to pick them up because they are still asleep. It is much harder on the parents than the children. They eventually grow out of this I am told. She seems to have them worse when she is overtired.
As for the head shaking, both of our girls do it and it scared the heck out of me when they first started to do it. I called the pediatrician immediately. She calmed my fears and said it was perfectly normal and that they just like the sensation...kind of like when older kids spin around and around...silly kids! Charlotte has even taken to spinning around like an airplane with her hads extended! Anyways, nothing to worry about.
Good luck settling in to your new home! :o)
Tracy
-----Original Message-----Hi everyone!
From: Parents_As_Partners@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Parents_As_Partners@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Angela
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 9:28 PM
To: Parents_As_Partners@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Parents_As_Partners] Head and Arm Movements
Hope everyone is doing well. We have moved to VA and have not found
a pediatrician yet (all the ones that have been referred to us by
local people have a waiting list of about 5 months). I was wondering
if anyone had any input about the following situation with our son
Ben. Ben is almost 9 months old (6 months corrected). He was born
at 25 weeks gestation and was just over 2lbs. He spent 64 days at
St. E's.
Ben is doing really well and seems to like the nice weather here in
VA. We have one concern though. He has recently started to shake is
head from side-to-side, especially when he is tired but not
exclusively when he is tired. He also rapidly moves is left arm up
and slams it down a bunch of times. It is always his left arm
although he reaches and grabs objects with both hands. His eyes are
open when he does this head movement. It is almost like he is
shaking his head "no" really fast. If we happen to be holding him
when he does this, he bangs his head hard against our head. It
seems to be getting more frequent every day. At the same time he
has also developed the habit of chewing his tongue or cheek (we
haven't figured out what he is chewing yet). Nate and I have read
all kinds of websites and googled a ton but there is conflicting
information as usual. It sounds like it may be normal infant
development but we wanted to see if anyone else that has experience
with preemies has experienced anything like this. It has us a
little freaked out! Ben doesn't seem bothered by it though. He is
eating fine and sleeping pretty good (no less than usual) although
he did wake up in the middle of the night the other night and
started screaming really loud, when I went to pick him up and
comfort him he seemed like he was still sleeping. I have read that
it could have been a night terror.
Thank god we haven't experience another one of those yet.
Well, sorry this is so long. We appreciate any feedback! Hope
everyone is doing well in Boston and we will see you in Sept (and
maybe at the walk in June).
Thank you,
Angela