Hi all. Apologies in advance for the long message! I'm feeling a bit upset and worried as my 7 month DD absolutely hates to be cuddled! She's never been a very cuddly baby but in the last few weeks she really pushes us away and gets really upset if we hold her (unless we face her outwards then she will tolerate being held but still wriggles her arms and legs as if she'd rather be put down).
In many ways she seems like a happy, clever baby - she has good eye contact and smiles and laughs at games like peekaboo. She has been desperately trying to crawl this week and today has managed to shuffle herself forward and she also rolls both ways and sits unaided. She seems interested in other babies and adults and will make an 'ah' sound to get their attention.
However, there are a few things I'm worried about. She doesn't really babble (no consonant sounds...she just shouts a singular AH sound or makes a repetitive mmmm or uhhhh sound). She also rotates her wrists and flaps her hands a lot. She also rotates her toys by moving her wrists around and looks at them from different angles. She gets really overexcited by sensory stimulation e.g. lights or a piece of fabric being moved above her face and will sort of stiffen her body and move her hands and feet and make a sort of repetitive panting sound. She absolutely hates getting dressed, particularly sleeves and she has never enjoyed being rocked or held. She is often quite hyperactive and is rarely still. She gets frustrated easily and seems most content if I hold her in a standing position so she can bounce her knees. When she does this she has her mouth wide open and again makes her excited panting sound.
I'm hoping I just have a very active and independent little girl but I can't help but worry that she may have a sensory issue or ASD. At our 12 week scan, they detected a thickened nuchal fold so we had an amniocentesis to rule out genetic differences such as downs syndrome. Everything came back fine but I don't think I have ever fully relaxed since then and I still worry that something will be wrong. In addition to that, she also had quite a traumatic entrance to the world. She was in a back to back position and ended up being delivered in theatre by forceps. She still has a scar and her left eye is slightly more closed than the right. We had a lot of trouble with feeding in the early days and she used to scream and arch her back through every feed. She was prescribed omeprazole for silent reflux which she stopped just over two weeks ago.
I'm not sure what I'm hoping for by posting this - perhaps some reassurance or maybe some advice on whether these worries warrant a visit to the gp or if I'm just being overly anxious.
Thank you!