Meet Stijn

Stijn was born 3 weeks early in February of 2010. Due to my high blood pressure, the doctors advised me that it would be better for both of us to let him be born. Stijn was very calm but also very sleepy all day long and had trouble feeding. His nurses and I tried everything to wake him up.

At the age of 5 months we noticed a strong delay in his development. We got the help of a physio-therapist, who gave us a lot of exercises we could do with him. With much hard work, we started to see progress! When Stijn turned 1, all his eating problems went away and step-by-step, his development improved.

It took two and a half years but after many tests, Stijn was finally diagnosed with CTD. Because of his diagnosis, doctors were able to more quickly identify the same issues with our younger son, Julian.

Meet Julian

Julian was also born 3 weeks premature but due to Stijn’s medical history, our experience with Julian went much better than expected. He developed faster than his brother and was also more alert, especially at night, when he made himself heard!

The only thing we had to watch out for was that his bigger brother, Stijn didn’t throw anything at him, so just to be on the safe side we put a mosquito net over the playpen. When Julian was 3 we had a blue walker. He was a natural! Julian sat on it and steered left, right as if he had never done anything else.

Julian is always cheerful, just like his brother! He loves cars, trains, tractors – in short, everything that moves. Football & basketball are also favorites, preferring to play with Mom, as well as every other weekend with Dad and his brother Stijn.