No eye contact in newborn

[DeAnne]

I have a 3week 3day old newborn who is not making good eye contact. I can only get her to briefly focus on my face a couple times a day for a few seconds, the rest of the time she is looking to the sides or around me. She will look at a black and white object very briefly and I think I got her to smile at me once, but it was very fast. She seems to be doing other stuff alright, such as cooing, and holding her head up while on her tummy, but the eye contact is really worrying me. Also, she arches her head/back a lot. Any advice? Thanks.

Sounds completely normal, if not advanced!! Smiling, cooing and holding her head up at three weeks is great. Neither of my babies made eye contact at this young age - that is COMPLETELY normal, I promise!

Holding her head up is great, don't think all babies will do that when on their tummies so young.
She's probably looking around you because tiny babies use contrast ? so they recognise your hairline, rather than your features as an older baby would (as well as using other senses like smell). If you really want to confuse a tiny baby, get your hair cut!

I remember getting very little eye contact for quite a while after dd was 3 weeks old. She gave me a definite smile for the first time when she was 7 weeks old, but there still wasn't a great deal of eye contact. So don't worry. I agree that she sounds quite advanced.

A three week old baby actually has pretty poor vision - she can't coordinate her eyes yet and her focus is still weak and she cannot see certain colours. Newborns, as Edam says, look at the edges of things, particularly faces in order to recognise them. They scan your hairline and the outline of your head to recognise you (though they do may have some limited perception and recognition of features) so your baby is doing all the right and normal things. Three weeks is not only too young for eye contact, it is INCREDIBLY young for smiling! Relax, you have a perfectly normal baby. BTW arching her back is normal too. I recommend a book called The Social Baby by The Children's Project, which explains a lot of stuff in simple but unpatronising language.

I was worried sick, and had convinced my dh there was something wrong as well, when my last baby was born because he would not make eye contact with me. At his 6 week check I had the doctor examine the eyes over and over, and he would not follow the light the doctor shone in his eyes. I was sure he was blind, or something. In the end he was over 8 weeks before he began to make significant eye contact, and then smiled a couple of weeks later. He is absolutely fine, I imagine he was just a late developer in the eye contact area. I know just how you must feel, but your baby sounds fine to me, so please don't worry.

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DS could focus but I guess that was completely strange as everybody was always pointing out that he was too young for it,the fact that he could focus his attention so easily in something since 2 weeks worries me more than being a bit out of focus as any other child

mine always used to look at lights and always to the sides or around me. A friend said she had read that they are looking at the shape of your head, so don't change your hairstyle! He also used to look for ages at the pattern on the sofa. I can't remember when he started to make more eye contact but probably not before 6 weeks or so when he started smiling and saying goo.

Goodness autism seems to be the new fear! (I assume that the worry is autism because of back arching/not much eye contact)

I really think its important to enjpy the early days with newborn baby. Even if a newborn was autistic you would honestly never be able to tell so there really isn't any point in worrying about it. My autistic son made very good eye contact (still does with familiar people), smiled early, held his hands up to be lifted at the right time, babbled on times etc etc. My NT second son was pretty late to smile and spent far to much time asleep to make much eye contact in his early weeks. I spent most of the time trying to persuade him to keep his eyes open rather than anything more elaborate.

Please do not worry about autism in a 3 week old. They're only this tiny once- enjoy it.

update???