Node/Express prevent sorting of api response

I'm currently using a nodejs/express api to make an API call to get some data where the data is sent back in an object of objects with keys like below:

{
  items: {
    '111': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-15 13:00:00"},
    '222': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-16 13:00:00"},
    '124': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-17 13:00:00"}
  }
}

when I receive the data in the response.data this is what I get

{
  items: {
    '111': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-15 13:00:00"},
    '124': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-17 13:00:00"},
    '222': { var1: 'something', date: "2022-02-16 13:00:00"}
  }
}

How would I prevent the sorting of the keys as it should be sorted based on the date?