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!