im worried sick my 9 month is showing signs of autism

[dubh1986]

Hi im looking for advice or reassurance from mum's out there that could shed some light i never wrote on any of these threads before but i feel i have the weight on my shoulders as i'm completely worried about my daughter at the minute and am searching for answers.
She is 9 months next week, she has only fleeting eye contact with me, when i pick her up from her grandparents she couldn't care less and doesn't know her name she doesn't really smile at me and has an obsession with her hands and feet flaps alot, when i go on the web (i know i shouldn't but cant help myself) and write even one of these things in autism is the main thing that comes up.
physically she is a very healthy girl and loves playing with her toys and loves to laugh, she has started to babble but there is alot of high pitch screams in there (another symptom of ADS) she was delayed in sitting up but with loads of practice over the past month she has hit her mile stone giving me huge relief. I don't want to spend the rest of "baby years" in a state of panic so i wanted to see if any other mamas out there been in the same position with there little ones.

I'm mum to two dc with autism. Dd was diagnosed at just two and ds was diagnosed at two and a half. I can tell you that nothing of wat you write would concern me and don't sound like my ds or dd (who were very different from each other) at nine months.
The positives in your post for me are that your dd babbles, plays with toys and laughs. Neither ds nor dd babbled, laughed or played. Of the things that worry you I can tell you dd never screamed (in fact never has) ds screamed constantly but never babbled. Dd has never flapped, ds did rarely and only when something was really exciting to him. Neither ds nor dd had discernible difficulties with eye contact and still don't.
Try not to spend too much time looking for symptoms because it will really colour your time with dd. Instead enjoy her, play with her and talk to her, time will tell whether there is autism or not but in the meantime just try and enjoy your time together would be my advice.

It’s what babies do - scream - when they first do it - they love it - it gets attention - so they do it again.

Do not google anymore. If I googled about myself now I would have all kinds of terminal illnesses!! Yet I know I don’t. Just enjoy your time with your baby. Listen to the health workers but don’t spend all of your time making appointments to see various health staff. Your baby is doing just fine

My then baby was exactly the same op, for a number of years. I didn't even get a hug or any love or much eye contact back from him until he was about 2. I'm autistic myself so was hyper aware of the signs, but he's now 7 and seems to not have SEN, and when he was assessed they said no concerns.

I think 9 months is generally the awful screeching phase. It was for my two. One went through a stage of screeching and rocking at that age and I was utterly convinced he was on the spectrum. He wasn't.

It's so hard because once the worry sets in, you look for confirmation. What I'll also say is that even if it does turn out to be the case that it is asd (as it was for me with another dc) it is nowhere near as bad as I imagined it to be when I was catastrophising. He is now a teenager and a gorgeous, kind human being.

Thank you to everyone that gave me advice I was nervous putting my worries into words on this form but I came home from work this evening we played some games I gave her a bath before bed time my heart had lifted a little I’m going to bed a little lighter ; I don’t have the answers but I’m going to try my best and not over think and just enjoy (TRY)

This has been a difficult 6 months due to Covid-19 and it can raise general anxiety levels. I definitely don't want to dismiss your concords since we don't know your baby.

However, I do want to suggest that you chat to your GP or someone else about anxiety. It can attach itself to whatever is going on in your life (eg baby's development) and make you feel like that's the real issue, when actually you need help with your own anxiety.

May be worth looking into! You sound like a great mum

concords = concerns

@dubh1986 any updates on your baby?

@dubh1986 how is your dd now

Just an update on everything over the past 3.5 years since I last posted
at 10 months I had another developmental with the health nurse , I explained my concerns and she agreed that she could see what I was seeing , limited eye contact wasn’t sitting up by her self very fussy eating bad sleeper , no mimicking, she told me that you couldn’t diagnosis anything at a such an early stage just to continue on what I was doing … this behaviour continued on for months but by 14 months my concerns were growing more and more the new concern I was now meeting was speach there was still no mimicking or trying to say anything i wanted to take things into my own hands and decided to bring her to speech therapy as I wanted to get some ideas of what I should be doing being a 1st time mum I felt I wasn’t doing the best I could be wanted to help her communicate, I would like to add that the lady doing the speech therapy also seen what I was taking about
( not at one point through out this any health career put my mind at rest which was such a difficult time but my partner and my mum both thought I was going mad)
fast forward 5 months ———>>>>>>>>>
I was still attending speech and language she was coming on to 19 months and we hadn’t got a word out of her but in the one of the sessions she mimicked the lady when counting to 3 it was very hard to make out she was doing that but we done it 5/6 times to make sure that was what my daughter was doing and it was … continue on another few months and her speach was finally starting to come she was repeating words i was saying she finally was able to to say mama and with all this she was connecting the words to what they were I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears to be honest
* during the time her speach was coming on leaps and bounds - she still was extremely fussy eater woke 3/4 times per night but her eye contact was perfect she followed things she was laughing at thing her dad and I were doing so her overall communication was coming on leaps and bounds
it came to her 2nd birthday and it was like a totally different child I was looking at from 8 months before hand I couldn’t believe it
she is now 4 years old and 4 months she is the smartest little girl and will be starting school in September. She is so loving and caring and forgets nothing I say to my own detriment.. I seen someone had just asked how things were now so I wanted to update on our situation as I would of loved to read this story and it MIGHT have put my mind at ease just even a little bit … I look back at the anxiety and worry that I had for that year and I’m angry that I can barely remember the good times as the worry was just so overwhelming during that time , I’m due a baby this September and one thing I’m going to take from all of this experience is that to take things as they come but every child is different reading the internet can be a very toxic place especially when your child has not be diagnosed with anything and to be honest every single thing I put into my Google search pointed to Autism…

@dubh1986 thank you for the lovely update and glad she is doing so well x

I just want to say thank you for coming back to
update. I could have written your original post so I was really hoping to read the outcome

so glad your baby is well, take care

No problem i trawled the internet looking for answers and people that were or had been in the same situation as we were in .
so I know how much a lonely place it can be
i wish you and your little one all the best x