16 week old not found hands

[CJ1990]

Is this normal? She’s chief them like crazy, occasionally grabs for stuff but not often. She just doesn’t seem interested! She more bats at stuff still. Just not sure when’s just late or when is a worry!

*chews them

If she chews her hands and bats at stuff, then what do you mean by saying she's not found them?

What is it you’re expecting her to do with them?

I was told by HV last time when she went through development she should stare at them / wave them around in front of her face? May have duff information tho!

Babies all differ and do things at different rates, my son didn't find this feet (aka grabbing them) till he was 7 months old! He also still wobbles when sitting (8months) and still isn't crawling. Sounds to me like she's doing well.

You're worrying far too much. She's found her hands she's eating them not all babies stare at them she's probably just not bothered.

If she chews them, then she's found them.

Does she try to pick things up? I don't think it matters if she looks at them. I don't remember my DC looking at things at that age. Everything just went straight in the mouth.

My boy only started picking things up at around 4 and a half months. He's been chewing hands etc for a long time before that, but didn't really use them properly until then. Now at 6 months he is grabbing everything constantly! I wouldn't worry.

She's found them, or she couldn't chew them and bat at things. The HV was just giving an example of what the early stages of finding hands can look like.

She wouldn’t be able to chew them if she didn’t know they were there, would she?

I thought that, I thought this “looking and staring at them” seemed very specific! Just don’t think she finds them that interesting haha. My HV is lovely but very keen on all this development stuff, asked if she’d smiled at our 5 week check up etc...!

Don't listen to the HVs. Half of them i don't think have ever met a baby with some of the terrible advice that I've received. Fortunately both MIL and DM were childminders so can put me straight! The HV made a huge deal about DD not rolling over at 3 months and really worried me going on about how her strawberry marks can be related to horrible neurological conditions. The pediatrian that we saw laughed and said a)not the right type of birth marks, b) not in a chatty and alert baby c) not in a baby who promptly tried to throw herself off of the examination couch. Their conclusion was the HV was batshit and DD is fine but possibly a bit stubborn!

DD is 18 weeks. She bats stuff chews her hands and pulls larger objects that she really likes towards her. If you give her a plastic chewable toy then she'll hold it for a bit and sometimes pull it towards her mouth but you can really see her concentrating. They really do all develop at their own rate.

My best friend has an 8 week premature baby. When they got home the HV came to visit (she was still only 36 weeks, so 4 weeks from her due date) and the HV said ‘ooh she should be smiling by now’ .

@blackcat86 my daughter isn’t rolling over yet - your HV does sound a little crazy - I’m sure that comes way later than three months!

Yeah think I just need to nod, agree and ignore her next time! Thanks everyone :)

@SoyDora we had similar problems, and still continue to. A lot of the time we just ignore, but it is frustrating. HV didn’t bother to adjust DDs age when looking at weight and wondered why she had ‘plummeted’ down the scale.

She’s suggested a couple of times DD should be able to do things, so I simply comment would you expect a baby 2 months younger to do that? No? So DD shouldn’t be held to that either 🙄