I just wanted to post this, in case it proves useful for anyone who is in the position I was in 18-24 months ago.
When my little boy was around 6 months old, I started noticing some odd behaviours (lack of eye contact, lack of emotional expression, behind on rolling/crawling etc) which I googled and then started looking into autism in babies. I researched to excessive levels and found myself trawling through social media videos of 'autism signs in your baby' and countless threads on Reddit, Mumsnet etc.
I inevitably concluded that he had autism and spiralled thinking of how difficult the rest of our lives would be. Fast forward nearly 2 years and he is a happy, healthy, interactive little guy. He's been hitting all of his milestones and does not fit any of the autism symptoms for children his age. I don't think he has autism now and, to be honest, if he does I don't care because he's amazing and I love spending every day with him.
The point I want to get across is that if you've found this post, you may well be in the same boat that I was 18 months ago - researching, watching endless reels/videos about autism in babies and generally panicking about how you're going to care for a child with additional needs. One thing that used to annoy me was seeing old posts on Reddit/Mumsnet etc from parents who asked if people thought their baby had autism and then the parent/author just never came back onto the thread. They never did what I'm doing now, to let everyone know how it panned out down the line.
Looking back, I despise the social media companies and their algorithms for click baiting exasperated parents and bombarding them with pseudo-science, all for the sake of more video views and money. Seeing videos online saying things like 'does your baby rarely smile? They might be autistic!' is as relevant as saying 'does your baby cry a lot? They might be depressed!'. Babies are all different and weird and, if you're a panicker like me, you're going to create false positive correlations whenever and wherever you can to convince yourself your child has insert condition you're worried about.
I feel like what should have been some of the best few months of my life was sullied by a constant fear and clinical observation of my baby. So please don't do that too. Enjoy them, stop over analysing, don't doom scroll or research into the uneducated abyss.