9 week old baby hasn't looked at my face once

[theadoory]

Looking for some reassurance. Our DS2 is 9 weeks old today.
In his 9 weeks, I can't remember a time when he's looked at my face, or anyone elses. He's enthralled by our skylight, but will not look anyone in the eyes, and actively turns his head from faces if you try and get him to look at you.
I'm absolutely terrified at this point. Is this a sign of autism?
Should he be engaging more at this age?
Can anyone advise, reassure, or confirm that this is a genuine concern?
Anyone had a baby similar who has turned out healthy/not?
Anyone out there with relevant experience able to advise in any way?
Is there anything I can do?

My DS1 was just like this. He would actively look away from faces, and mainly seemed to look away at the corner of the room. If I moved into his line of sight he would look away. I can remember what he was like at 9 weeks, because I remember seeing a friends baby who was the same age and who obsessed with faces, and I was really worried.
He is now 19 and off to uni, and looking back I think it was just his personality, he gets overwhelmed by some things sometimes. Try not to worry,

Thank you for sharing this - I find the actively looking away part particularly worrying. My daughter never displayed behaviour like that.

Update:

Hi! I’m the OP. I just want to put this out there in case it helps anyone. This is a post I recently put on a formula group.

Our baby had the most extreme gastro issues imaginable from the start - screaming in pain for hours on end, utterly miserable and not meeting milestones. No smiling, cooing, eye contact, at 9 weeks old.
Utterly miserable all the time, extreme twitching movements, really gassy and smelly, very depressed looking.
We were really worried about something developmental going on, but the distress he was in after bottles was so brutal that I suspected some sort of issue with the formula, or my breastmilk as I was combi-feeding.

Was fobbed off by the health visitors who said ‘its normal, just while their digestive systems get used to’ blah blah. Our first son was a bit colicky etc - I just knew this was something completely different.

We were seen by paediatric a&e at addenbrookes and referred for full work up - bloods, brain scan, audiology and eyes, as they were super worried about his lack of turning to sound and responding to anything at all.
Anyway, while all this was going on, we decided to change his formula from cow and gate to kendamil. This made no difference.
We decided one last try - kendamil goats milk formula.

In two days, he was a different baby. It was like he ‘woke up’ in a way.
No more gas pain, colicky screaming, staring off into the distance not responding. He smiled, then laughed, then made loads of eye contact, and is now the happiest, smiliest, most engaged and chill baby ever.

Whenever we’ve tried cows milk again (for example using a ready made cows milk when out and about) all the symptoms came back.

All the hospital tests came back negative.
It wasn’t cows milk protein allergy as he didn’t have rash/breathlessness etc. It can’t be lactose intolerance, as goats milk still has lactose.
The paediatrician was pretty amazed, as goats milk is very similar to cows - but its worked, and we’re going with it.
Only downside is that Kendamil don’t do ready-mades in goat, which is a right faff - but its worth it if he’s now comfortable enough to develop properly. He was just in so much pain, there was no energy left for behavioural development.
Oh, other downside is the OBSCENE cost. But obviously its worth it. 🙂

By the way, if anyone has found a goats milk formula in ready-made form, please let me know! 😅
thanks for reading!

It’s a bit odd of the hospital saying that it’s not CMPA through the tests. Unless things have changed dramatically recently I didn’t think there was a test for non-Ige CMPA?

They didn’t test for that - it wasn’t suspected due to no other symptoms apart from the pain. Baby wasn’t diagnosed with anything in the end.