4 month old not making much eye contact, is it normal?

[Jossy122]

I have noticed that when my baby is laying down, he will turn to look at either me or my husband. When he is standing, supported or sitting up he turns his head away so he is not making eye contact. You have to do something like blow a raspberry to get him to look. He will only do this on occasions though.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there any advice that you could give?

Thank you

I would guess that he's looking round at other things because he's interested OP. The fact that he's making some eye contact is good, four months is still very little. You can attract his attention, which is also good! In fact I'd say that in order to maintain eye contact you need to be interesting him in some way with sounds or smiling and talking to him. There are studies that say that girls make more eye contact than boys, too. Is he smiling much?

Our eldest wouldn't look at the person holding them when a baby. Look everywhere else. And if you turned away they would quickly glance see you weren't looking and as soon as you did look away.

They have turned out fine.

Mto add they did smile, as they got older understood jokes and humour. Etc etc

Yeah he smiles when we walk into a room or if we say ,"Where's that smile?" He will respond with lovely smiles.

@frozendaisy ok that's good to know. I am a first time mum and think I am probably just worrying. We didn't have a good start and now I just worry.

He sounds fine then! Welcome to being a mum and worrying about everything OP.

@heldinadream ok that's good to hear! Thank you 😊

There was a lovely program on channel 4 called "baby it's you" i think it was on in the 80s or 90s, maybe see if you can get it in iplayer as it did I think a program on every month. I seem to remember it saying baby boys look at faces less generally they were looking around at other things. I think it's good he's inquisitive looking around, he sounds lovely and normal to me.

@Pinkjacket22 thank you ☺️

Any update:)? My boy is almost 4 months and is very similar.

I have noticed my 6 month old puts his arms out to his sides. He then wiggles his fingers. This is normally when he is excited, is this normal?

Yes it's fine OP, I think you need to chill out a bit and not worry about every little thing :)

I know this is an old post but I was wondering if you had an update. My son doesn’t make a lot of eye contact and it’s really concerning me. Thanks!

I'd say he's interested in his environment, which is a positive as he'll learn that way.

Hi, my son is now 11 months old and makes lots of eye contact. He started doing it around 5 months in the end. Don't worry, they will start doing it and it's so lovely when they do 😊

I love to hear that! He is 5.5 months so I can’t wait for it to come :) thank you for replying

At 4mo a baby can spend 40% of his/her time looking at his/her own hands - they are learning to control their own body and need to focus on that.

no need to worry about eye contact at that age, but do keep talking to baby - narrate the dull stuff that goes on in everyday life like the laundry. It is a great age for baby to be tuning into language and hearing lots of words.