Mabel was born a month early so for the first year I was told to use her "adjusted" age based on her due date to determine her milestones. Although she reached her all so important (in a sarcastic tone) milestones on time most of the time even without adjusting her age, I have found myself wondering if she's on track after the surgery, spica and brace. Physical therapy has helped to catch her up to where I feel she would have been, but I kept searched for info online that may help me feel like I know physically where her development is falling. The doctors typically say "everyone is different" and it is true, but I finally got a nice little formula from a friend of my mother's who use to be a pediatric orthopedic nurse that adjusts Mabel's age. I found comfort in the early months of Mabel's life with adjusting her age so the idea of doing it now made me feel good.
She said: Take the baby's age now. Subtract the amount of full time therapy in the cast/and/or/brace and in Mabel's case she said to also subtract the month she was early and then you have the adjusted age for physical milestone development for crawling, standing and walking. So for Mabel: 16 months - 4 months for cast & brace - 1 month for being early = 11 months or so and she is right on track with that if you look at the milestones for a baby 11 to 12 months.
Sigh of relief. It seems so simple, but sometimes its the simple things in life that makes you feel better.
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