Babies first smile - help!

[Gizmo2206]

Heya, my little girl was born at 35+1 and is now 6 weeks and one day old (or 1 week corrected, if counting from due date!) I was happy With how everything was going but since 4 weeks my health visitor has been questioning whether DD is smiling and following things with her eyes. She focuses on people and maintains good eye contact, and will follow my eyes briefly, but hasn't smiled yet. Please reassure me that this is fine, especially given that she was premature!

[KingOfTheStupids]

My 2 were born at 36 weeks and the first smiles came when they were about 7 weeks old. I'd give her a few more weeks yet before you start to worry.

[Gizmo2206]

Yeah, i wasn't worried at all, but health visitor has made me concerned

[Sleepyhoglet]

My baby was one week early and I don't think she was smiling then. More like 12 weeks! She giggle and rolled over and is a good weight so please don't worry. My health visitor worried me by expecting her to turn her head to sounds but she wasn't interested. No hearing problems but it then made me worry. I checked online and she wasn't at the age to be turning her head to sounds but didn't stop health visitor asking if she could

[Gizmo2206]

Online it seems to say 6-8 weeks for smiling (obviously some babies earlier/ later) so I don't understand why she asked at 4 weeks and 5 weeks! Of god. I need to relax!

[Ineedacleaningfairy]

I thought it was 6 weeks from your due date, my babies were both 2 weeks late and smiled "early" but my hv said that was normal as smiling is usual 6 weeks after the due date, so your little one has loads of time yet!

[tabulahrasa]

She'll have been asking just because some babies do it earlier than 6 weeks not because she should be doing it, but just because she could do, so might as well ask.

[Gizmo2206]

No she said it was odd that she hadn't smiled (this was at 4 weeks!)

[DeeWe]

Dd1 read all the right manuals and smiled dead on 5 weeks. beautiful open mouthed smile, and was so chuffed with the reaction she got she kept smiling. Was a middle of the night feed and totally glorious.
Dd2 got to about 12 weeks and I still wasn't sure if she'd smiled. She did little closed mouths smiles, but certainly not by 6 weeks. In fact I wasn't totally confident she'd smiled at 5 months. In fact she was crawling beofre I was confident she'd smiled-I know because I stopped worrying about it after she was crawling. I didn't get a photo of her smiling until she was 2yo.
Ds definitely smiled at 1 week, and kept smiling until he was ill with his first jab reactions. He smiled at any face that came near with lovely eye contact.

Interestingly dd2 is the smiliest of my dc now, dd1 is quite serious and ds still does (at 8yo) those helpless belly laughs, but dd2 is the one who gets comments on how smiley she is.

[tabulahrasa]

god no, it's not odd...your HV is weird.

[Whattonamemyselfnow]

My first probably didn't smile for about 10 weeks. Born on time. As for his eyes I was convinced he was blind for the first month. Try not to worry

[RolyPolierThanThou]

my first smiled at 5w and my second not until almost 10w. I would not worry at all. Once my second got going he became the smilier of the two.

[CookPassBabtrigde]

She sounds perfectly normal - try not to worry. Mine didn't start proper smiles until 8 weeks and he was overdue!
some babies smile early but 4 weeks is really early ime. She is making eye contact and that's great, before you know it she'll be smiling all the time

[CookPassBabtrigde]

Also I've found HV ask for the sake of asking - ours asked a few weeks ago if DS (6mo) is crawling yet and when I said yes she was shocked I thought well why ask?!

[AbbeyRoadCrossing]

A lot of health professionals don't understand about corrected age, I'm constantly having to remind them. Developmentally your baby is a week old so don't worry. My DS smiled at about 8 weeks corrected age. Just remember to use corrected not actual or you'll have lots of worrying to do otherwise.

[bonzo77]

Your HV is ignorant. On average they smile 6 weeks from due date or birth, which ever is later. My ds born at 35+5 smiled at 11 weeks. As expected.

[Gizmo2206]

Thanks so much for the replies, has made me feel a lot better.