Hi all, looking for people’s thoughts re my baby’s development. Completely prepared to be told that I am being paranoid - I do struggle with health anxiety and have been pretty anxious during motherhood so far - but I am finding the worries hard to manage and would like to know whether this sounds genuinely concerning to others.
My son (first baby) is 10 weeks today (born full term) and up until the last week or so has seemed to be developing normally, feeds extremely well and is gaining weight, becoming more alert etc. He is neither unusually chilled or unusually fussy I don’t think, just in the middle. However last week I saw a video (I fear it was on TikTok…) that sent me into an anxiety spiral. The video was about babies’ eye movements and said that constantly looking off to the sides/above the head can be an early sign of autism. Since then I have been researching 2 month milestones and have become really worried that my son is delayed and could be showing early ASD signs.
The things that make me worry are:
He sometimes makes eye contact/gazes at people but not consistently. He sometimes seems to turn away from faces. He certainly doesn’t seem drawn to faces
He spends a great deal of time looking off to one side (out of the corner of his eye) and also looking above his head
He first smiled around 6 weeks but doesn’t smile much, we might get a couple of smiley episodes in a day and it feels like we have to really work for them
He has never gazed at me whilst breastfeeding and has never smiled during a feed
He doesn’t seem to respond to the sound of my voice
He doesnt seem to follow objects with his eyes or track me as I move around the room
He cannot hold his head up AT ALL during tummy time
His sleep is appalling - he wakes every hour unless held/cuddled all night long
He still wants to feed a great deal, much more frequently than every 3 hours and is often only soothed by the breast
He doesn’t make many cooing sounds
When he lies on his play may he lies quite still, doesn’t really try to interact with the toys
He doesn’t seem to have any preference for me - not really comforted by my presence
…and probably other things I have forgotten!
To be honest if I hadn’t started looking into it I might not be worrying but all these things together make me think there could be something going on. I’ve watched a lot of videos of 2 month old babies who are so smiley, engaged and sociable, constantly interacting with their parents, gazing up during breastfeeding and babbling away. That is not my son at all. He seems in his own little world.
The other potentially relevant piece of information is that I suspect he has CMPA and have just cut dairy and soy from my diet to see if that helps him. I don’t know if an unmanaged intolerance like that could be causing the above at all.
My husband’s sister was recently diagnosed with autism as an adult (she is very mildly affected) so perhaps it is on my mind more than usual… No other ASD in the family.
Any thoughts or experiences would be very welcome… I am probably being stupid but I’m sure we all know how awful it feels to be so worried about our children!