Development sign - very anxious Parents.

[ShazamJaffaCake]

Hello All,

first time posting and really looking to hear other people experiences and for a bit or reassurance.

our DD is about to turn 6 months and my partner and I have started to really worry about some development signs. We have done the usual terrible thing of turning to the internet, and I’m sure you can all guess how much that has helped, but I did find some reassuring posts from peoples experiences on here so thought to give it a try myself.

Our DD is basically doing / not doing the following

Eye contact - does do it at a distance, but rarely to never when up close. Also no contact when feeding or playing games in the air. Also no interest in looking at us or cuddles when being held, more interested in the world around her.

babbling - She does have some basic baby noises and blows raspberries, but it’s very basic, so no Ba, Da, Ga etc. and also no high pitch noises. She will sometimes engage in back and forth conversations though with the limited noises she has.

Peekaboo - play this with her, every now and then she might smile but for the most part isn’t interested.

Mirror - she will look at herself in the mirror, but doesn’t chat to herself or smile really. She will bang on the mirror though.

Name - doesn’t respond at all if we call her name. Will sometime respond if calling from a distance, but assume this is just her turning to the sound.

Wrist Movement - she seems to regularly rotate her hands and her wrists as if she is trying to rattle a toy she doesn’t have.

Mouthing - She won’t put anything to or in her mouth other than her hands or will sometime chew on my hand or shoulder when held. She is solely breast fed, she will chew on a few things if we put them in her mouth, and we have started weaning the past couple of days and has swallowed a bit of food, but we are talking 2 baby spoon fulls.

Tongue Chewing - since about 2 months she has chewed her tongue, she kind of twists it around in her mouth and constantly chews away at it.

Our thoughts are that this is a lot of things all together and could be a red flag for autism / sensory issues. We want to make sure we are giving her the best support possible and have spoken to the health visitor, but she seems a little bemused by some things like the tongue chewing and hasn’t really been able to tell us much.

Thank you in advance of any responses.

Honestly not too much here is really jumping out as being an issue. A lot of it sounds mostly normal. 6 months is so super young still so much of this stuff will change and develop over the next few months.
My son has only recently started to enjoy and take part in peek a boo. He’s 14 months. Before now he would just look at us like we were crazy.
The babbling sounds very normal.
It’s all worth keeping an eye on and it’s great that you’re so aware of how she’s doing that you’re noticing these things. But please try not to worry just now. It’s crazy how much they change in the space of a few months and you’ll see things that you thought were an issue just completely stop happening, or some other weird thing will happen for a while.

Thank you for replying and sharing your experience as well. Interesting to know that it mostly sounds normal to someone else

It sounds quite normal to me for a 6 month old. Your baby is very young - a lot of babies start moving, babbling, responding much later. Babies following a set time frame to meet milestones would help us anxious parents, but unfortunately babies have their own agenda 😊

Hello @Paperweight7 and thank you for responding.

OK, that’s nice to hear. We have gotten ourselves very worried / worked up about this. So will just have to wait and see what time brings.

out DS hit all of his milestones, so this is a very different experience for us

I have taken great comfort from reading the posts of others and then seeing their updates later down the line, so thought I would post something similar.

Our little one is 10 months old now, I still have worries, but she has come on a lot.

eye contact - much better, does this enough now for me to not really think or worry about it anymore.

Peekaboo - this has become a favourite game along with other people games.

mirror - she still isn’t really fussed about mirrors, but has at times done the things asked in the milestone questions.

Name - responds to this well and also now knows the names of a few family members and objects around the house we play with regularly or talk about.

wrist movements - have stopped completely, can’t even remember the last time this happened.

mouthing - she started doing this at about 8 months. Not sure why, but she will happily put anything in her mouth now. Also a good little eater, both from the spoon and also at eating finger foods herself.

tongue chewing - still happening, still a worry. Seen a few medical professionals and they all seem a bit none comital about it, not really seen it before, not a warning sign for anything they can think of, seem to think it may be a comfort thing like sucking on thumb.

babbling - still a worry. She is ever such a quiet little thing, in baby classes and busy places / new places she mainly just sits and watches and takes things in making little to no noise. She does make lovely noises at times, and we do now get consonants every now and then which is amazing. We also had 3 days of strings of consonants like “bababa” & “dadada” a couple of weekends ago, but none since.

she is quite ahead with her gross motor skills, has been able to pull herself and sofa surf for about a month, confidently charges around holding on to one of my fingers. And can take 5 or 6 steps between things before tumbling. Our hope is we have a walker rather than a talker at this stage!

she is also demonstrating communication in other ways as well now. She has been able to point for about a month which is lovely, will make a noise to confirm she wants something if asked, and will sometimes bring books to us to read to her.

Hi! How is your little one now?

@Lalvarezyou might want to try an @ if you want to get the OP’s attention

Hello @Lalvarez

she has developed and changed massively since this post, let’s do an update.

All of the things I listed in the above I would say are no longer concerns or things we think about barring two.

Tongue Chewing - this is something she still does. We and medical professionals still have no idea why. But to be honest, it doesn’t seem to hinder or bother her in anyway, and while my partner still really notices it (I would describe my partner as her primary carer as I work full time and she only part time to care for the kids) I don’t notice it as much anymore. We saw the dentist about a month ago, who was concerned that she only had 4 teeth at 21 months. We naturally started to worry a little more after that in case it was something related, and a follow up was arranged for 3 months later where the dentist would refer her for specialist care if no more teeth appear. 1 month post that appointment and we have 5 new teeth already visible and looks like a couple more soon too, so less worried again now!

Babbling - we’re past the babbling stage now and trying for words. I wouldn’t say we never got a lot of babbling to be honest, she just started making sounds that sound like words, and we now have 10-20 I would say. Not sure other people would recognise them all as words, but they very clearly to us. What also did make a big difference is we took her to sing and sign classes, and she started to communicate with us using signs rather than words to start with, which she has about 10-20 of as well I would say.

so fingers crossed all going in the right direction now, and we’re both in a far better place than where we were when I was posting and asking questions on here. We got to a pretty bad place and I actually reached out and got support for us both with counselling and in my partners case help from the GP too. In hindsight, while we can’t be absolutely sure our daughter doesn’t have any underlying concerns, I’m 99% sure now she is fine, and that actually it was more us that were unwell and needed support. So if anyone in the future does read this, make sure you are getting the help and support you need, because no matter what’s going on with your family, they need you in your best shape too.

how are you doing?