9 week old eye contact and avoidance of faces. Extremely anxious mum

[mongo123]

Hi everyone..i have a 9 week old baby with eye contact issues. She can def see. She can track (most times she will do it) and spends a good deal of time looking at her high contrast toys either overhead or during tummy time and will smile and coo and spend a good deal enjoying this. She does not seem to like the mirror toys. She avoids looking at our face. Everyone. She makes fleeting eye contact. It is enougn to make me concerned. I have no other issues with her development. She seems disconnected sometimes. She does not turn to look yet in the direction of noise but will startle and make expressions such as surprise etc on her face. A couple times when she heard my voice or her brothers she will try to turn toward it or she will respond with a smile. She sleeps all day. Wakes up for her feeds but only has maybe 2 truly awake periods. Most awake at night ďuring her night time wake period. This is when we get the most eye contact. I savour these moments and crave more so much. Why does she seem to purposely ignore people all other times.? Just to note during the day she goes back to sleep rignt after her feed except for a couple times when she would wake for 15 to 30 mins. If i stand over her she looks away. If i pick her up she looks away. She will look at me during bath time and feeding times. At 2 doctors appts she surprisingly displayed great eye contact and had back and forth cooing conversations and smiled with them so they dont share my worry. However i am with her 24/7 and this is seriously getting me so anxious and depressed. When we do get the eye contact she imitates of we put our tongue out ( started this as early as 3 weeks old but it has lessened now) ...she will also smile and coo. We just dont get a eye contact a lot and those associated coos and smiles. When did your baby start engaging more and being interested in faces?

My ds was like this. Would actively look away and stare at the walls/ceiling. I remember being so worried and particularly because every other baby seemed obsessed with faces. I think my ds found it overwhelming looking into faces. I can’t remember when it changed but my ds is now 14 and absolutely fine.

So reassuring to hear this. Thank you!

This is meant with kindness, but do you think it is possible that your worry over this is making you try too hard? Babies at that age will look away if they’re overwhelmed by too much stimulation (your face counts) and if you’re trying very hard to get eye contact then there’s every chance you’re over stimulating your baby. They do like faces to look at but not constantly and not necessarily to engage with all the time. My daughter didn’t make eye contact much at that age and now she’s a healthy, happy 2 year old who’s very sociable. The sleeping also sounds very normal to me.
Try not to worry and just let her develop at her own pace.

My ds was like that, he also slept an awful lot during the day! Even when he was a bit older he seemed to shy away from eye contact but is totally fine. You may just have got yourself worried and now you’re over focusing on it, which is what I have a tendency to do.

My second son is like this and is also a tremendously sleepy baby... To the point at which I was getting worried! Now he's 17 weeks and really engages with people, faces, noises etc. He was just a potato for the first two months of his life though! :)

My daughter was like this. I worried so much. I’m pretty sure it was post natal anxiety. I was probably worse than you but it ruined her full first year for me. She’s 100% normal and progressed rapidly after 1 year old.

I asked the HV about this as DS would do it with DP all the time. She said it was overstimulation.

Should add - he is a healthy 3yo now!