Failure to make eye contact

[frangosa]

DS is 10 weeks old and will not make eye contact. Every thing I see on the net is really scary - suggesting autism. I know it is early days but no other baby I know or have heard of has taken this long to connect/recognise the people around them. Please let me know if you have had a similar experience and how it turned out. Please do not tell me to relax and enjoy my baby and don't worry, particularly if you have a baby who is interacting with you. Sorry but I have had some really unhelpful remarks back and this is something that really concerns me and after some research I know that I am right to be worried.

Sorry no advice or experience but it may be worth posting this in the special needs section as people who DO have experience may see it.

I posted on your other thread.
Generally it is considered polite to acknowledge people attempting to help you,even if it isn't what you want to hear.

If you really are worried,comments from strangers on the Internet will not help.Mention it to your HV or GP.

As I said,I am a speech and language therapist (ie pretty up on the development of children and their communication strategies) and in my opinion,it is too early for you to be worrying.

10 weeks is too young for any autistic symptoms.

if you don't want reassurance theres not much i can say because to be perfectly honest i think your worrying unecessarily.... some babies do take a very long time to learn to focus on faces and even if something is wrong i would imagine it's far more likely to be an eyesight problem than ASD.

if your really worried get him seen by a doctor rather than reading the net as the net is always fuull of doom and gloom information... most of it taken out of context by the reader.

10 week is too young to worry about eye contact .. stop trawling the internet you'll only worry yourself about stuff you simply don't need to worry about

One of your replies was from a speech and language therapist who is a specialist in autism- she was right you do not need to worry about this at 10 weeks of age. If you are concerned that your baby cannot see that is another thing, (and I think HV can check to see if he will follow an object etc) but it is way to young to even be able to worry about autism.

My eldest son is severely autistic. His eye contact was fine as a baby(often is pretty good still). I watched my younger 2 children like hawks, but I never fussed much about eye contact, especially in a 10 week old. Eye contact is not a particularly good indicator.

There are no tests for autism that can be administered until 18 months (and that's only a screening test, not diagnostic and doens't even mention eye contact as far as I remember)(- because it is so hard to recognise in a baby. The only "signs" of autism in a baby under 12 months are a slight reduction in referencing (but 10 weeks is too early for that anyway) and a slight reduction in response to name (but too early for that as well).

If you have concerns about your baby do talk to your HV. I think it would be wise to anyway to be honest because you (as in one) can easily get yourself into an anxious state.

Moondog, I didn't understand you were a speech and language therapist, I don't know what all the initials on this site mean. You're actually the type of person I'm looking for reassurance from - someone with experience of such things. I am not wanting doom and gloom to confirm my worst fears, I am hoping to hear from people who have had the same concerns whose children have turned out to be ok or from professionals who see babies often enough to know that some babies really do take this long. I have an appointment with GP tomorrow and saw a therapist last night. I am doing all I can but in the meantime I wanted news to cheer me up.

I read the thread after I posted my message .. and then I re-read your initial post .. I think that's a little off personally .. and actually quite insulting to those who posted on your other thread

I know you're worried and I know the first months of your first child's life seem fraught with anxiety but you really shouldn't look for stuff to worry about when you have experts (and Moondog is an expert as is Jimjams) telling you there's nothing to worry about

if you spend your time worrying you'll miss out on so much of the pleasure of your child's development

and I DO remember the feeling of worry about first child, I really do .. so I mean this post as empathetic .. it is hard to work out when to worry and when not .. but honestly truly this is one of the NOT times

now go and snuggle your baby

Frangosa,we all worry.
Permanently.
I can't do more than offer you some very general guidelines.Even if I saw you in person,I couldn't give you a definitive answer.

If you are concerned,then yes,seek help from the people there to help you who will talk it through with you and hopefully either calm your concerns or follow them up.

I hope you feel better.

Twiglet, this is my second child, not first. Friends and family have also voiced their concern. I'm not looking for something to worry about, I'm looking for someone to tell me from their own experience that it's probably OK. Apologies to those who think I'm being a bit off.

And JimJams, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. It helps.

sorry for misunderstanding and assumption

really don't mean any offence

hope your gp can reassure you

Fiofio, just a general lack of recognition of what's going on around him. He avoids eye contact. If I look at him he looks up or to the side to get away from my eyes. If I follow him he continues to turn away. He doesn't respond much to noise - talking/clapping but I'm sure he can see because he does follow movement and hear because my daughter screaming near him makes him cry.

tbh when mine were that age it would never have occurred to me to fret about eye contact or autism. Is there something in your background or experience or has someone said something which has made you focus on this ? Please don't let it overshadow enjoying your lo.

I agree with everything everyone else has mentioned on this thread and would just like to say:

Firstly, don?t go reading up on the internet again. While the internet can be a very useful source of reference, it can also serve to exaserbate any worries you might have, and remember, not everything you read on the internet is from a reliable or confirmed source, so a lot of what you read may not even be accurate. I?d imagine most of us would be dead by now if we went on the internet to diagnose every ache, every pain, every cough and twitch, most of us would probably be convinced we were suffering from a debilitating illness and the stress of us would most likely kill at least some of us.

Secondly, worrying is natural, we all do it at some point. If you are genuinely concerned then I would seak advice from a gp/health visitor. Other than not making eye contact, how does your baby react to visual stimulation? Does he:

Turn his head towards light, i.e. window
React if objects are placed near him i.e. with bright colours
If you come quietly up to him (so he can?t hear you) does he react in any way if you touch him, or does he register that you are there by sight iyswim.

If he fails to do any of these things then I would seak an eye test from an optometrist and/or specialist.

I am totally blind and was diagnosed at 3 months. And I was diagnosed because I failed to react to visual stimulations, but I have light perception so I would turn to look at light from a very early age, but didn?t make eye contact/react to brightly coloured/interesting objects.

I think that you know your baby best and if you are concerned it can?t help to seak the opinion of another, at best they?ll tell you you?re being paranoid, at worst they will confirm your fears and get you further help.

Good luck xx

Thanks for your msg wannabe. He does turn to light and also objects like on his playgym and he has a frog attached to his cot which is the only thing he has ever smiled at. He doesn't however look at people unless their moving around the room, then he will follow them with his eyes. Faces he looks away from.

Lizs, with my first child I also didn't give it a second thought. I don't remember when she first looked at me or smiled but I do know that by this age she was really interacting because that was her first Christmas with us, I have photos of her to clearly remind me of how well she was interacting. They say boys are different and he was born and 39 weeks, she was 41. I wouldn't have given it a thought this time but as time has gone by it has occurred to me that there is no connection and I feel there should be. Anyway I'm a little reassured. Hopefully he's just taking his time.

Doctors will check vision etc, but they can't even begin to check for autism until the 2nd year of life.

Are you worried about anything else that can be ruled out?

I was terrified that ds2 and ds3 were autistic from the time they were born (they were both very high risk- 100 times more likely than Joe Public). I had to learn to live with that fear and really put it aside until they were 18monthsish because it is so hard to tell before then (hard to tell at 18 months even when looking out for it tbh- were were told by 3 different professionals between the age of 18 months and 2 and a half that my severely autistic ds1 "definitely isn't autistic"). You can drive yourself mad looking at every interaction.

What we did do was a) avoid any potential trigger as much as possible b) keep a close eye so that we were ready to start therapy as soon as any concerns came to light.

We did have concerns about ds3 at 17 months as he wasn't pointing. We had his urine tested at Sunderland (that's something you could do if you stay worried) and he came back with a very similar result to ds1. At that satge we removed cows milk and switched to goats, the lights came on, within days we had a different child. Now he's 2 and very obviously not autistic (and still on goats milk).

sorry rushed message- Sunderland is The autism research unit (ARU) - they test for the presence in the urine of a substance called IAG-0 which seems to indicate that membranes might be leaky. if they are then a child can have problems with gluten and casein (milk protein- goats milk still has casein- but a different form and is digested more easily). Larger molecules than usual can get through and act like opiates. Lots on their website.

We did avoid gluten with ds2 until he was 2. DS3 is still gluten free and only has limited cows milk.

I do think ds3 came very close to developing along an autistic pathway. I still treat him as being at high risk (2 is ripe age for regression).

frangosa, ultimately, every baby is different and what happens with one doesn't necessarily happen with another and vice versa. Everyone told me that boys were different too and yet my ds crawled at 7 months and was talking at 18 months (in sentences) and yet a friend's dd didn't walk till she was 19 months and didn't talk until she was two.

Has anyone else mentioned your ds's lack of interaction? I mean independently not confirmed your fears iyswim?

I don't think it can hurt to speak to your hv, but I wouldn't start throwing around terms like autism just yet, because there are many many other conditions which could cause lack of interaction in a young baby, and equally it could just be a slower to develop thing.

frangosa, I don't know if this helps to reassure you but I had twin girls first pregnancy, then had two boys and I noticed that in the early weeks I got a lot less eye contact and personal interaction from my sons then I did my daughters.

My Sister in Law has twins (boy and girl) and her son also maintains less eye contact then her daughter (they are roughly about 10 weeks old at the moment too)

Maybe its a boy/girl development thing?

Frangosa I have three boys, two with Autistic spectrum disorders (DS1 is high functioning, ds3 was only dx'd yesterday but low with speech delays). Therfore ds2 is NT.
I don't recall any differences between any of them at this age, ds1 was in fact an extremely independent child, ds2 a whinger and ds3 very passive.

With eyesight as well, much hasn't even begun to form in any concrete sense at ten weeks, the fact that ds1 has vision issues was in no way apparent then, he had those diagnosed at 15 months.

i would say it is too young to worry about lack of eye contact now.

BUT i knew from a very very young age that dd2 was different. even sparkly commented on her, well, laid back she was. she would never jump with loud noises, rarely cried, and just was in all honesty not worried if i was there or not.

oh and i remember a HV commenting about dd1 at around 3months, about how good she was for looking at things and people. so i guess that was unusual for a young baby.

dd3 (yes ihave 3 girls) didnt focus as much as the other two, but she is extremely long sighted.

Misdee DS3 was like that too

Sam was so independent it was a joke though! We were warned to expect a week in SCBU with him...... there was no way he was having that LOL! Few days observation at my bedside and home.

Still is like that......