Is my baby developing ok?

[dsttc123]

DS will be 15 weeks tomorrow, but was 4 weeks early, so only 11 weeks corrected.

He started occasionally smiling from around 11-12 weeks (8 weeks corrected) and now at almost 15 weeks still doesn’t smile much. However, he does wave his arms and legs around to show when he is happy. He makes noises frequently, but doesn’t babble yet.

He isn’t great at tummy time, we only just recently got him to lie on the mat without crying. He will sometimes use his arms to hold himself up, and doesn’t always lift his head. He has rolled from tummy to back a couple of times.

He enjoys playing on his back on his playmat and bats the toys with his hands. He can hold a rattle if it is placed in his hand, and occasionally will pick it up himself, he will move the rattle around but I don’t think he is shaking it on purpose.

When held on my lap, he can hold his head up well. He seems to have good concentration, can follow a moving toy and people, and will sometimes turn his head towards a noise.

Does this seem ok? Most of my antenatal friends (most due a couple of weeks before me, but born after) have babies that have been smiling for weeks and are now babbling away. I know it’s ok for him to be 4 weeks behind as he was 4 weeks early. But even based on that, he should be doing more smiling now as he should be 11 weeks now. I don’t see the health visitor for ages, so I don’t have anyone to ask.

All sounds normal to me. Even if he isn’t smiling much he can do it - he might just be a more naturally serious baby

He sounds great! My DS is 20 weeks (he came three weeks early - after 37 weeks you don't correct age but I still allow for this and consider him to be more like a 17 week old) and only started smiling consistently at about 15 weeks. All babies are different :)

Sounds great. My first didn't smile much and is actually quite a serious child. If he's rolling a bit he's doing better than my full term 21 weeker who refuses to move a limb!

There's a great book called what to expect in the first year, it gives the milestones you can expect at each age range, and can be very reassuring as it allows for the variances between different babies.

Sounds absolutely fine to me. It’s really hard to compare babies even when they’re the same age as they all seem to focus on slightly different ‘milestones’ so you’ll get one at 15 weeks who spends all their time babbling whilst another is using all that energy on their neck muscle development. It’s so hard not to worry though.

You can ring your HV at anytime. There is a really good book called “Mary Sheridan's From Birth to Five Years: Children's Developmental Progress” which has all the baby milestone divided into age groups.