Worried about my 8.5 month old :(

[Winstonxo]

Hello all!

I have come here because I am very very concerned about my sweet boy. He is 8.5 months old and is the love of my life. I am sick with worry however because he doesn’t respond to his name, EVER. Any one else have a little one who was late to respond to their name? I feel like he is just outright ignoring me or truly doesn’t know his name and I don’t know which to be more concerned about honestly. I would love some feedback from you all.

Ok. Is that the only thing which worries you? What sounds does he make? Does he respond to other words?

What's he doing at the time? My LO will happily ignore me if there is something more interested to play with/examine/chew.

Have you noticed any issues with his hearing otherwise?

Well I have many worries, this one is just bothering me the most. I’m an anxious first time mom and tend to over analyze him according to my family. He doesn’t really have joint attention and he doesn’t show me toys when he plays he just sits and plays to himself mainly. He also doesn’t really appropriately play with his toys, just hits them and bangs them against one another. I plan on asking about it at his 9 month check up but that isn’t for another 2 weeks. He does look up at me sometimes when playing and he turns and reacts to sounds.

Wallsbangers, he could be literally doing nothing at all but chewing on his hand and he still doesn’t respond if I call his name. Sometimes he will if I enter the room from afar and call him but not sure if that’s him responding to his name or just responding to the noise of my voice.

As a mum of three with the youngest being 8 months old, he sounds pretty normal to me!

Sounds exactly normal if my now 18mo is anything to go by.

My two did the exact same.
I now have two boisterous boys that literally use me as a trampoline and then swoop in for kisses.

Have a little word to your HV about how anxious you’re feeling. She might be able to help.
Also, I found the wonder weeks app fantastic for realistic expectations of the ranges of what to expect the baby to be doing at their different development stages.
It calmed me down so many times.

Try not to worry too much. Sounds fine to me (but ftm so fairly clueless). My LO is 1 and loves banging things together or shaking things, it was one of the things on the check up. My HV told me that it's not a linear development so he might be more developed in some areas than others.

Thank you all so much for your reassurance, it does make me feel a little better. It’s hard because I haven’t been around many babies in my life at all so I don’t have much to compare him to other than what the internet says and that can sometimes really freak you out. All I do is stay at home with him all day and watch every little thing he does. I never knew all the little worries becoming a new mom would present! Again, thank you all for your replies.

My dd is 8.5 months and completely ignores me when she's playing. She studies toys or just hits them with this angry look of concentration on her face. I didn't even realise they were suppose to respond to their name at this age? She's so content doing whatever she's doing that I don't even bother trying anymore. I'm there if she wants me but I can tell i annoy her when I interrupt things so I just do my own thing while she does hers until she's interested in me again for some boob or a quick cuddle

MustBeAWeasly, thank you so much for your input! It truly makes me feel better to hear he isn’t so behind others his age! About a week ago I was calling his name and he didn’t answer so I thought, ‘hmm I wonder when they start responding to their name?’. When I googled it, it said 6 months! But it also said that it isn’t a “missed” milestone until 12 months and that a majority of babies respond by 9 months at the latest. Which sounds all sorts of confusing haha. So I, being the worrier that I am, saw 6 months and freaked out. I appreciate you ladies sharing about your little ones! :)

If your worried then ask the GP for a hearing test.

You may also want to get a copy of birth to 5 as it tell you all the milestones in detail.

He's very young. I think it's too early to worry about asd which I presume is what you're concerned about.

I'm pretty sure my toddler did nothing but bang toys together until he was at least one!