So when I speak to people in person, everyone tells me "every child is different, every kid develops differently, comparison will rob you of joy", which in theory I agree with.. but then when you Google or read health blogs, they basically tell you all children should act the same and to panic if your child seems behind in any area whatsoever..
My son is 14 months, and nearly 15 months, and it's just confusing because he can seem like two different kids depending on the situation and time! I'll be very clear, I'm a bit worried about ASD, more specifically severe ASD. I have a family member who has severe ASD and of course I love her dearly, but lfe has not been easy for her to say the least.
On the good side, he loves to bring me things... sometimes if I say "where is the ", he will find it in the room, pick it up, bring it to me and give it to me with eye contact. When I walk in his room in the morning he will look me straight in the face, say "up" and lift his arms, lunging towards me. When he's done eating in his height chair he will take his bib off, look at me and point to me. When I'm carrying him around he will point to things he wants me to take him towards. He will run to us when he's scared and put his arms up or hug us. He can label a handful of body parts. He has said/attempted to say about 15-20 different words and knows the meaning of many more. Shows and shares tons of things with us. He looks at us for reactions when he does certain things that he knows he shouldn't be doing. Likes when we chase him and tickle him Pretty easy to make him laugh, good sleeper, decent eater. Etc
But then sometimes he gets in moods and situations where he can seem spacey, distracted, and unresponsive. If he's in a new place or outside, he'd much rather be looking around than looking at people, to the point that it can be almost impossible to get his attention and get him to look at you besides quick glances. On the same hand, he doesn't care for greetings or bye bye at all, he used to wave plenty around 10 months but as of a couple months ago he stopped caring and only does it super rarely (he does say "bye bye" occasionally though). His eye contact has never been the strongest, if you're close to his face, he typically will not engage in eye contact (but from further away he will look at you a decent amount). His name response is also unpredictable, depending on the time/day, sometimes he'll look almost everytime you say his name, sometimes you could say it 10 times and he won't care.
I think it honestly bothers me most when we're leaving a family members house and they're trying to say bye to him and he's more focused on looking at things in their house and he doesn't seem to care or notice someone talking to him... That seems abnormal to me compared to other toddlers his age, but I hope I'm wrong.
Don't really know what to make of it sometimes. Gonna be speaking with the pediatrician at his 15 month appointment soon, but just wanted to hear some other opinions first, hoping that I'm just being super picky and hard on him.