I just wanted to preface this post with I am a FTM and don't have much experience with babies so i don't know if it is just my anxieties or if my concerns are valid. I have noticed since 4.5 months that my baby just seems so different to other babies his age.
List of concerns:
- Very serious baby, hardly smiles or laughs. Will laugh if you tickle or really work for it. Not a baby to smile back if you smile at him, will just give a blank look back
- Eye contact not very good. Will avoid at all cost if we hold him in front of us. Better if he is on the floor or on his change mat.
- Does not turn to voices or his name. I am not concerned about his hearing because he will turn to sounds from toys.
- Difficulty with sleep, will wake up every 2 hours crying and it will often take us an hour or two to settle. Will be quite distressed and will arch back or try to wriggle out of arm when trying to settle.. same if on the chair trying to rock him to sleep. Only thing that seems to temporarily calm him down is by playing lullabies.
- Doesn't babble yet.
- Drawn to lights, will wriggle in your arms to be in a better position to look at lights
- Quite fussy and unsettled. Been like this since birth and cried for the first 3 months of his life (unless nursing or sleeping). He is still quite dysregulated and will go from 0 - 100 in a second. Will cry when getting nappy or clothes changed, cry when being put down for sleep and will always wake up crying. Now that he is starting to crawl, he can be put down for a bit longer but will get over it quite quickly. When he is unsettled the only thing that seems to help is holding him and walking around (gets exhausting as he is constantly unsettled). He also has a scream cry and it gets stressful real quick.
- Will flex limbs quite a bit.. makes it hard to dress him. The physio said he isn't stiff as such but more him resisting moving and tensing his body. However, at the same time, he is also constantly kicking his legs. He always needs to be moving.
- Solids has been slow as he is not very fond of textures
- Will flap arms when happy. Will get happy from lights or random corners of the room.
He has always been a hard baby and the doctors don't seem to be concerned. People keep telling me that he will get less fussy with age but as each months go by, i just get discouraged. I have changed him to a dairy free formula to see if the fussiness was caused by an allergy.. but we have seen no change in behavior. I see other babies and i just get disheartened at how hard it feels to interact with my own baby. I know i shouldn't have and i googled my concerns which has only made my worry worst. I just want to make sure that i am able to support my baby as well as i can to give him the best chance to thrive in life. Has anyone had similar concerns with their LO? how did things turn out?