Development worries 20 weeks

[Pondlife87]

My little girl is 20.5 weeks (4.5 months old) and I am worried about her development. I am a FTM so may just be anxious but so far she hasn't rolled front to back yet. She has bad reflux so we don't do a lot of tummy time. She has excellent head support when being held up right and rolls side to side and cranes her neck round to see what is above, but no rolling yet.
She also doesn't babble. When she was about 3 months old she started making a 'mmm' sound almost constantly and did this for about a month, but now it has stopped. She hasn't made any other vowel sounds, but oohs and ahhs and 'shouts' a lot.
She smiles regularly but has only laughed about 4 times since her first laugh about 6 weeks ago.
She is grasping items and scratching/ stroking materials.

Should I be worried, or is this normal?

[Imicola]

Sounds OK to me. My DD rolled about 4 months, but friends DCs were later, one about 8 months. Babbling she didn't really do until about 8 months I think,definitely not as young as 4 months. Try not to worry, they all work at their own pace!

[Imicola]

(and some of the advice on when they will do particular things I found really unhelpful, like copying what you do at a few weeks old... As if, it was about 10 months for that one!)

[NewMum293]

Sounds like my baby! She’s six months old and only started rolling front to back at 5+ months (and still isn’t rolling back to front) but has great head control, loves looking around and can now sit unaided for extended periods of time.

She is also very chatty/shouty but I don’t know that what she does counts as “babbling” and only recently have we caught a few clear consonant sounds coming out.

She laughed at 16 weeks but did so v v rarely after though she is a very smiley baby and only in the last couple of weeks has she started laughing a lot more frequently.

Babies develop at different rates! Your bubba sounds totally normal and totally lovely - as long as she is happy, engaged and healthy, don’t worry too much about specific milestones - they will come! We kept trying to encourage my daughter to roll front to back and she had none of it - then one day just did it of her own accord!

x

[mindutopia]

That sounds fine. Rolling usually happens roughly 3-6 months. If she isn't having much tummy time, that will obviously give her fewer opportunities to practice rolling. It's almost more about just the time spent in that position and getting up the nerve to do it than strength or skill. Maybe try to increase tummy time if you can.

She should be making sounds, but babies don't really babble much at this age. My youngest was babbling from 5/6 months, which is quite early actually. Eldest one didn't probably babble until she was 9 months. That wasn't considered delayed or unusual by the HV.

[chocodrops]

Yeah, sounds totally normal. My 8mo didn't roll front to back till 5m. She wasn't sitting by 6m either but has become one of the earliest crawlers 💁🏻‍♀️ Only this week have I started to notice some early babbling.

Don't stress, just enjoy them 🌸