Is this normal behaviour?

[WouldAnIdiotDoThat]

Hi all, thanks in advance for reading.

I'm probably (hopefully!) being ridiculous and paranoid and I'm very happy to be told this if so, but I'm worrying that my six month old boy isn't always behaving in a "normal"/ neurotypical way. He's a demanding baby, he always has been, but to be fair to him he had severe colic for the first few months of his life due to CMPA. He's over the colic and has also outgrown the allergy now.

But now he is still demanding and I'm exhausted! He needs constant attention and interaction and screams when I leave the room, he hates being confined in the pram or car seat and screams (unless napping), he gets bored of toys very quickly and won't play on his own for long, he's on solids and isn't always the best feeder, sometimes he'll just cry the whole time and I'm not sure if we should persist or not. When I put these sorts of behaviours into Google I get hundreds of results refering to him as a "high needs baby" which then leads to hundreds of articles pretty much saying that every high needs baby will be an adult with autism or ADHD, so I've basically terrified myself.

On the plus side, when he's not screaming he's actually a ridiculously happy baby, he smiles at everyone he meets and we often get comments like "he's the most smiley baby I've ever met", he loves other children and babies and tries to interact with them, he's always given good eye contact. He loves any kind of baby class and thrives on stimulation, he doesn't seem to get over stimulated at all. He sleeps well now but that took a bit of sleep training. So far he's been ahead of milestones on physical developments (he's so close to crawling!) and, I might be being biased here, but he seems bright, he learns things quickly like to turn pages in a book. So does all of this suggest he wouldn't have autism/ADHD?

I know lots of people will say I shouldn't even be thinking about autism/ADHD in a six month old but I've read so many articles now from mothers who knew their child was autistic from a few months old. Basically my head is completely scrambled and I do wonder if I'm suffering from postnatal anxiety a little, but I've never had any kind of anxiety before and I'm not sure to be honest.

Sorry that was long! Thanks to anyone who read it and anyone who comments!

Hi, there’s some stuff in your post I don’t have experience with so I can’t comment on those. But the screaming when you leave the room, not liking the car seat and not being a great eater all sound completely normal. My DD is 8 months now and I can’t even turn away from her without her screaming some days. You mention the pram, have you moved him to a proper buggy type thing yet or is he still in like a carrier type attachment? (Hopefully you get what I mean!) Now that my DD is in her buggy and can look round more etc she is SO much happier in there.
The sleeping also sounds pretty normal but I guess that depends on why he struggled with it. But I think the babies that are good sleepers and rarer tbh.
Everything is such a worry isn’t it? It would be so much easier if we could just peak into the future to check that everything turns out ok, then carry on with the present.

Who has said he has out grown the allergy? Most paediatric dietitian would say not to start the milk ladder until at 1 yr old. I would try going dairy and soya free and see what happens.

We did about three months dairy free while we were waiting for our dietician appointment then once we eventually spoke to a dietician she said we needed to do a confirmation test before we had further appointments and the confirmation test showed that he's grown out of it already. The dietician confirmed that if we had no symptoms after the test we can assume he doesn't have the allergy and progress as normal.

Thanks for your reply! He can sit up in the pram attachment we're using but we still have it facing me, maybe I should turn it so he's facing outwards so there's more for him to look at. We use his pram for naps a lot so he might also associate it with me trying to make him sleep so he cries when he's not tired.

Was there less screaming during the dairy free time?

It could be that he has had a painful start to life and associates you with comfort and security so if he doesn't have your attention he panics.

Not really to be honest, he wasn't a fan of the dairy free formula. He had an awful rash and hives before we went dairy free but the rash didn't actually seem to bother him much. His rash didn't come back when we restarted dairy recently.

Actually I should probably clarify that he doesn't need attention from me specifically, he's not particularly clingy with me, just attention from anyone makes him happy.

He sounds like a delightfully normal six month old. I foster and have had a few babies and he sounds like most of them in varying degrees to be honest. I

Thank you! That's reassuring.