Worried about autism- 12 months old

[Kjoiner9185]

Hi all. Ive never made a post like this but im just desperate for peace of mind. Im a first time mom to an almost 12 month old baby. She turns 12 months old in less than 2 weeks. I have been concerned about autism with her since she was like 7 months old. Always analyzing her and just terrified something is wrong. Here are some things she does/doesnt do:

• great eye contact
• answers to her name unless she’s busy or occupied
• claps and waves but not always on command or in imitation. She used to clap when we clapped but doesnt really do that anymore. Sometimes rarely if i ask her if she can clap she will but this isn’t consistent.
• i think she might be in the early stages of learning to point? She will randomly throw her arm out at things like toys on her shelves in her room and if i hold up two different snacks she will throw her arm up at one of them. The only time its paired with eye contact is if she wants the snack im holding and i havent given it to her yet.
• she turns to loud noises or really any noise in or out of the room we’re in, very curious with things.
• started babbling (dada, nana) around 9.75 months and did that for 2ish weeks but then stopped and it hasnt picked back up again. In the time frame of her stopping she has started pulling to stand, cruising and can sometimes stand on her own for a few seconds.
• crawling at 9.5 months
• eats and feeds herself very well- no food aversions or sensitivities. Pincer grasp well established
• sleeps well, 12 hours a night. Always been a great sleeper. Does co sleep now and most of the night wants to be cuddling with me.
• reaches to be picked up
• doesnt seem to understand when we say things like “come here” or “where’s dada?”, this is one of my bigger concerns.
• doesnt really care about peek a boo, will smile a couple times and then get bored and crawl away. Definitely doesnt initiate it with us
• has separation anxiety if i leave the room. Will try to crawl after me as soon as i go to leave and if she cant follow me she will get upset
• does have stranger anxiety, gets very cautious around new people. Most of the time she will warm up after a little while when she feels more comfortable.
• used to get excited when seeing our friends baby who is a couple weeks younger than her but now doesnt care just crawls around and plays
• will sometimes shake her head no if we do. For the past couple days if i asked her to say no she would shake her head but yesterday and today she wont do it on command.
• mainly just chews on all her toys still or crawls around and throws them. Some toys she will play with correctly like pushing the button on a light up toy and will pull the string of her play phone to her. She doesnt play with anything for long- just bounces around from toy to toy.
• most of the time at least pauses or sometimes cries if we tell her no. Definitely think she understands this one.

sorry for the extremely long post. Im the only one in my family who is concerned about her being autistic, they all think she’s fine and i just need to calm down. Ive had 2 different speech pathologist's look at her over the months and both said they dont see any autistic concerns but i cant convince myself something isnt wrong. She has been evaluated by early intervention and they said she was 4 months delayed in communication so she has been approved for services and sees a developmental specialist 2x a month and hopefully soon we’ll be adding speech in 2x a month as well. The developmental specialist works with autism everyday and she doesnt think its that either and just a communication delay but again no matter what anyone tells me i just feel like her getting a diagnosis is inevitable. She will start doing things and then stop and that scares me extremely bad. We struggled with infertility for years before getting her and im just so tired of worrying all the time. I am also in therapy trying to treat my anxiety. If anyone has any insight or positive stories please let me know!

I don't think they want it, as such, but they are being scared shitless by social media where every single thing is autism or ADHD. It's absolutely ridiculous and revolting. No one can just be a kid, anymore, without having some kind of label shoved on them and it's making neurotic mothers and over medicated kids. It's actually terrifying and quite sad.

Kindly, you are massively overreacting.
She sounds like a perfectly healthy and normal baby for 12mths.
The milestones are just guidelines thats all! Some babies are well ahead and others are not so much.
Enjoy your little girl, this time is so precious and goes so quickly. Don't waste it with unnecessary worry xx

Completely normal.
I feel sorry for your baby because your projecting your anxiety on to her, this is damaging and going to stunt to her progression and growing as NORMAL human.
why look for issues that aren’t there it’s completely bizarre there are so many other things to worry about

Whatever is going on here it appears to have little to do with your baby and more to do with your own compulsive behaviours/ anxieties. It’s good that you are already seeking help for your anxiety. Perhaps you are finding that difficult and are subconsciously looking for ways to disengage from that. I hope you turn a corner and things get better.

What mean things?

The majority of people are pointing out that your daughter sounds perfectly similar to other 12 months old and that perhaps it's yourself who you should be focusing your attention on instead. That's not mean... its factual.

Try to enjoy your baby. This must be a miserable and exhausting time in your brain.

Nobody is being mean as far as I can see??

They’re just incredibly frustrated as it’s very obvious you have huge anxiety. I’ve been there btw, I focused on being convinced my babies either had odd shaped heads, or epilepsy, or or or….

It is also a little insulting though that you see autism as such a bad thing. One of mine has ASD and is the most marvelous person on the planet. She’s very high achieving at school and has loads of friends. Now obviously I know this isn’t the case for many of those with autism, but it’s a far cry from being a life sentence!!

I’m sorry, but it’s a bit rich to say that other people are saying mean things when you keep saying that autistic people have something wrong with them….?

The way you talk about neurodivergence is frankly not acceptable. Some of us are autistic. Someone of us have children who are autistic. And you talk about us all like we’re the elephant man, something to be feared, something wrong.

There is absolutely no sign of autism in what you’ve described, but it is also possible to be a very successful, emotionally astute and highly developed individual and still be autistic - it’s not a terminal illness.

What absolutely 100% WILL damage your daughter is not autism, it’s your pathological health anxiety. You need to get to grips with it. And you also need to educate yourself as to what autism actually is, because we aren’t monsters to be demonised.

Has she had her ears checked by doctor for wax or middle ear fluid, and hearing tests? Always something important to check.

Edit: fwiw, I'm a doctor myself. I'm also happen to be autistic and have ADHD and I am the proud mum of a son who also happens to be autistic and has ADHD.

Thank you @PortSalutPleasefor being as direct as I would like to have been.

The OP’s comments about ND are actually abhorrent.

Yes! Checked at 7 months and again last week after a recent sickness- both times she passed hearing and had no build up of fluid or wax.

Im sorry for anything I said coming across as offensive because that is a far cry from what I meant it. Im just scared of the future and especially scared that my daughter will never talk. Again, so very sorry.

I saw a couple but they are gone now. Not sure what happened to the comments. Did not mean to be offensive to anyone. Just worried about my daughter and want to do anything i can to help

As a mam to an autistic child ill give you my experience. I felt like my son was a very different child from very early on. He met the majority of his milestones early with the exception of speech. He was always extremely fussy, hated being held and it was very hard to hold his attention. I was told repeatedly my concerns were all in my head eventhough I'm a social worker and my area of expertise is Autism so realistically I know the signs.
I pushed for an early diagnosis and was given an appointment after my son had a huge regression at 18 months old. He was diagnosed at 2 and a half. It was rough in the beginning but he's settled in a great school and is very happy.
Best advice I can give is note any concerns you have and push for an assessment of need. A diagnosis isn't the end of the world its just a life you didn't expect.

I'm a a SALT and have extensive experience with autistic children. I am so tired of the over pathologising of young children. Your child seems to be developing typically and as PPs have mentioned, children's communication skills at this age will vary hugely.

Also - just putting this out here. It is statistically more likely that a child will have delayed language skills than be autistic. The former can exist without an autism diagnosis. Too many people observe delayed language/communication skills and jump to an autism diagnosis. Autism is far more complex than a child being late to communicate.

Have you ever considered the fact you may be autistic yourself? Because this level of attention to detail about your child’s milestones is a good example of an autistic trait.

Seriously, you need counselling and are at risk of developing a munchausens-by-proxy weird dynamic of health anxiety for this kid who is probably perfectly healthy.

A 12 month old cannot show signs of autism. There's a huge range of perfectly reasonable timescales for key skills to be developed and at 12 months nothing in your post rings any alarm bells whatsoever.

If your child has some kind of neurodiversity issue there won't be any solid evidence of it for a couple of years yet, the child will still be just as lovely and lovable as ever habing such a diagnosis is no tragedy, and there is no action you could have taken or any benefit to be bought by worrying about it now. But it's far more likely that the child has no such issues - though if you don't get help for yourself soon you'll probably induce some kind of anxiety disorder in her sooner or later.

Mum of 3 here and one is actually autistic with learning disabilities.
Your sweet baby sounds like a perfectly normal baby .
please don’t worry

Absolutely 💯 my youngest ( of 3 ) child had a severe speech and language delay but it really wasn’t completely apparent until maybe 2.5 to 3 years old .
Until then we were quite reasonably believing that her siblings were stepping in and sorting things for her and by third child I was so very ridiculously busy that I was more laid back as other developmental milestones were appropriate.
First things first , hearing test …when that was ok we went to other assessments.
started SALT then OT and so on .
Autism diagnosis too but not till upper primary school

You really need to calm down. Your child sounds fine, whether or not they turn out to be autistic, they are within normal milestones. The biggest thing for your child right now is to have a parent who enjoys them. I think that the speech therapist stuff has got in your head, but there’s a really wide spectrum for speech development - some kids are babbling away closer to 1 and some kids say almost nothing until over 2. Just stop!!

I agree with this. I have been in OPs position, I catastrophised extensively about my then 1 year-old being autistic.

Several years down the line and it turns out he is autistic, but it hasn't been anything like the catastrophe that my anxiety made it out to be. There's been some challenges, but he is a happy child and we have a happy home life.

Worrying won't actually change the outcome OP, so get help for your anxiety and do your best to enjoy your baby.

(and for what it's worth OP, my son was doing pretty much nothing off your list at 12 months).

As an autistic person, I don’t think there are any signs there that aren’t normal. Really the bigger concern is your anxiety about her. Have you spoken to your doctor?

Repeat poster, some details changed, obsessed with ND, please do not engage.

If only you showed up on all of these threads our kids might have a fighting chance.

As a autistic person with two autistic children, there are zero signs of autism. You are obessed with the idea of your child has autism this isn’t the first time you have posted, seek help.