should I be worried about arm tensing/shaking/flapping?

[zwiggy]

my 7 mth old lies on his back pointing his feet and arms outstretched tense and shaking. everyone comments on this so i'm guessing its not normal. he has always done this. Is it something to worry about ie autism / adhd?

He is very smiley , normal development But.. dairy allergic.

Anyone see a pattern?

bumping

Er, he is 7 months old. Sounds normal to me. He just sounds very physical, it's the only way they can "exercise". When he starts sitting up and crawling I bet he'll stop doing it. Far too early to be thinking of autism.

FWIW I had a habit of tensing and shaking when excited, when I was little. Erm, I haven't entirely grown out of it but have got it under control so I can pass it off as a shiver or 'SOrry I thought I was going to sneeze'.
If everything else is fine then there is nothing to worry about. People have their little harmless quirks, and the rush to medicalise and chemicla-cosh these quirks out of existence is a far worse thing than allowing a person to be a little bit harmlessly different.

i know i'm being neurotic, thanks for your reassurance. Its just that lots of other mums comment so I googled it and then panicked!

Please don't google, virtually anything can be linked to ASD if you look hard enough.

If you're still concerned in a few weeks then mention this to your hv. Am sure you have nothing to worry about!

it's misinformation that arm or hand flapping and shaking is a trait that only belongs to ASD or adhd.

my daughter does this, more of a spasm, and has dyspraxia, but doesn't show any sign of ASD despite loads of diagnostic testing.

she saw her paed just a couple of weeks ago who said even people with no disability do this, and at 7 months i wouldn't worry.

My DS used to sit in his pushchair when he was about 6 months old with his legs extended straight out, almost rigid. A friend said he'd never seen such a tense baby. I put it down to the fact he wanted to be more active but couldn't really do anything. It stopped after a while, looking back probably when he began moving around more.

oh my DD did this to the point where i was about to book a doctor's appointment - she would lie on her back and go entirely rigid and shriek, with her arms shaking - this was also at about 6 or 7 months, and i also googled and drove myself mad about infantile spasms and all sorts.

in any case, what made me stop worrying was in fact poitning it out to my friend who said "what? is she doing it now?" and then laughing at me and telling me about all her baby's bizarre twitches

sure enough, as soon as she got more mobile, she stopped doing it, and with hindsight i guess it was some part of her muscle development or something

if you're really worried, try getting his attention when he's doing it - if he responds to you, then he's fine and just practising for all the crawling and standing he's about to do