Anyone else that baby hand/arm flaps when frustrated or excited?

[catlove1]

Just to ask because Dr. Google points it is red flag, however he does not have any other development delay so not over concerned even it makes me thinking every time i see it.
But hand flapping is daily, when excited about favorite toy (hand flaps both arms for 3-4 seconds), or frustrated to get candy (hand flaps with 1 arm toward object he wants to get). This 1 arm hand flapping does not concern me too much during frustration, but excitement hand flapping is with both arms, like birdie and more scary.
Anyone else in the same boat at 1.5yr old baby? Normal?

I do it and im autistic so maybe theyre saying its potentially stimming?

My 18 month old has done this for as long as I can remember. My parents laugh as supposedly I did it when I was a baby too, and DD is the spitting image of me. I'm not concerned :)

Just enjoy your baby as they are. Yes it's a sign of possible autism, or they could just like doing it because it is fun but autistic or not there is very little that can be done at that age and nothing to do if no other development delays.

Perfectly normal.

Mine does it but mine is a little behind in his development (we're working on it) im told its normal at this age (also 1.5) and for me, I feel like well.. He is who he is, regardless of what happens. I love him anyway, regardless. And we will make it work. It is scary, im a single parent without much family or support and his dad never bothered with him so it's really just me. But me and my son have many more years to build up our life together, disability or no. Try not to worry. Hard though that is

Also, dr Google is a scare mongering prick and should be struck off ha ha. I TERRIBLE anxiety, and so i NEVER google, EVER!

It could be autism, it could just be a phase.

My kids are both autistic and never really flapped, fwiw.

At 1.5 I really wouldn't be worried. The thing with an autism diagnosis is that it's like a jigsaw you can only put together retrospectively - so yes if your child in the future is showing other signs of autism, particularly not responding to their name, strong sensory aversions or needs, language delayed or unusual, then you would want to tell professionals that they've hand flapped since a baby. But hand flapping alone at this age is not something to be concerned about - it feels nice to do and it is getting across to you what your baby wants, so currently a good communication tool.

You say candy, are you in the US? They do seem to diagnose absurdly young in the US whereas in the UK it's very much watch and wait unless there are overwhelming signs. My child was diagnosed at 4 which is early for the UK.

My autistic and my non autistic child both did this!

Pretty sure this is just totally normal excited baby behaviour at this stage! Both of mine have been big flappers when excited but started to grow out of it around 2ish. Both are NT.

Haha @ ‘red flag.’ Dramatic much!

Both of mine did and one has Autism and another has a different disability. My child who’s Autistic actually doesn’t hand flap anymore as they have different stims but my other child must flap about 200 times a day. He literally can’t walk without flapping!

If there’s no other ‘worries’ so to speak then it’s all good. Children react in different ways when they’re happy. I wouldn’t stress about it

Was there any difference in way and frequency how one did it compared to another?

All you can do is be aware it could be a sign but at that age it's too early to know anything really. Do you have ND family members? I would just note it down and keep a list if you notice any other behaviours that might indicate ASD. DS's didn't become apparent until nearly secondary school age but looking back there were indications. He never hand flapped though.

My DD has always done this - only when excited, not frustrated. She’s nearly 4 and it’s fading a bit but sometimes when she is at her very most excited she will do it. She is NT. I think it is adorable!

At about 2-3 my DS used to jump up and down when he was excited and I googled it and massively freaked out in case it was a sign of something. He grew out of it and is now 6 and NT.

I realised that a lot of the supposed red flags for things like ASD are totally normal in the preschool years - it’s only if they carry on doing them beyond that and/or the frequency is excessive and/or there are lots of other signs that you would need to worry.

Everyone stims - hair fiddling, nail biting, foot jiggling - these are all stims common in NT people and not a sign of anything.

Absolutely normal and standard behaviour for babies. 😊

How it is possible that diagnosis is established that late? I guess there were no talking/speech issues and it is mild case since it was not obvious in early years?

I can only speak from my own experience, but to be honest, autism can present in a subtle way. I used this analogy once before on here and people found it really useful, but I had one autistic child with a bunch of red flags (I know someone up thread objected to the term “red flag” but whatever) as in speech delay, lack of interaction, major communication difficulties, meltdowns etc. First saw a paediatrician around age 2, on the autism pathway aged 3.5, diagnosed just after turning 5.

I had another child with none of these red flags but, with the benefit of hindsight, I now realise that there were a LOT of minor flags. Pink flags if you like 😄

Things like very late potty training, demand avoidance, precocious speech, a lack of social awareness/understanding of social boundaries, sensory issues with clothing, major food issues, rigid thinking, sleep issues, complete inability to play by themselves or otherwise entertain themselves. There are more (I wrote pages and pages for the paediatrician when they were referred aged 8) but that’s off the top of my head.

As @LauraMipsum said it can be a jigsaw you put together retrospectively.

I know MANY kids who weren’t diagnosed until secondary school, usually after a complete breakdown in their mental health after years of struggling. Some parents are completely blind to their child’s traits. Others are aware but don’t want to do anything about it, until it’s too late.

I've never met a baby that doesn't sometimes flap their arms when excited. It's a completely standard instinctive gesture at that age, like laughing

Exactly what @Jellycats4life said, and to add to that, some children get diagnosed later because their red flags are put down to something else which obscures it - a stripy flag, to take that analogy to breaking point. I know two children who were just as "obvious" as mine in early years but professionals refused to put them on the pathway, one because she had been born premature and all her issues were attributed to that. If she hadn't been premature she would have been picked up far younger.

That’s mad @LauraMipsum, I thought it was very well-known that prematurity and neurodivergence are strongly linked?!

I thought so too, but she was ignored and ignored and ignored until she was in reception, then got a diagnosis of speech developmental delay, then a year later global developmental delay, and the really obvious autism was just glossed over for ages - she is now about to go to the autism specialist school she should have been in for the first place and I am so annoyed on her behalf that she didn't go there from the outset when she should have done. She's a lovely kid and she's learned absolutely fuck all at mainstream apart from how difficult she supposedly is.