Lack of eye contact 12 week old

[Whoknowsnotme1]

Hi everyone,

First time posting here even though I’ve been reading for a long time.
I have a 12 week old and I’m worried about his lack of eye contact. He seems to make eye contact with us occasionally but not frequently and there’s not a pattern to when it happens (I’ve heard a lot of people saying that their little ones make good eye contact when on the changing mat but not up close, but my son seems to be more random). I’ve read a lot about this topic and I know that it’s too early to be alarmed and that no health professional will take me seriously until he’s older. I also know that no one here can tell me for sure whether my baby will be ok or not but to be honest I’m feeling really worried, sad and lonely. My husband knows my concerns and he knows that we need to keep an eye on the issue but he’s not as worried as I am (and rightly so) but some days I go to bed and wake up obsessing about this. If my son is disabled I’ll obviously love him just the same, I just worry about this world we live in and how he’d cope. I’m sorry for the rant, I’m just feeling lonely and lost and extremely worried about my precious baby.

I’d definitely mention it to the health visitor. For other reasons too we saw the ophthalmologist when DS was 7 weeks old. They do see babies although some are more used to them than others. DS got glasses at 11 weeks and the difference in his eye contact was very clear.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t check it, because I’m no expert — but fwiw (if it helps) — I thought this about DD at the same age, she was my 2nd baby and I felt like her gaze was really vague compared to how DS had been. It just kept drifting up and past me when I changed her… I was worried. She is now a teenager with absolutely perfect vision. So it could be fine. Try not to worry too much

@280NeuerNamen thank you so much for your reply. I thought about doing that but the last time I spoke to my health visitor (a few weeks ago) she told me his next check would be at 9 months? I was surprised as I see comments here that lead me to believe that people are in close contact with their HV but so far we saw ours once in person and had a Skype call after that. I’m going to see a private Pediatrician next Saturday and I’m really hoping she’ll be helpful (I see so many people mention that these concerns get ignored when babies are small, the fact that it wasn’t your case make me hopeful).

Well the next usual check may be at 9 months but you can always contact them with any concerns. That is what I would do.

is the private paediatrician just for this? Obviously if there are other concerns then they may be useful but they won’t be able to do any more other than refer to an ophthalmologist if required. The HV can do the same. Unless you have private health insurance I would just get the HV to refer to NHS.

The NHS eye care near us was great, we ended up choosing to stay with the NHS for his eye care despite having private health insurance.

@LemonJuiceFromConcentrate thank you so much for the reassurance, that’s really good to hear

@280NeuerNamen we have private health insurance and we are not originally from the UK and still struggle a bit to understand how the system (NHS) works - where we see from private solutions are more common. Your suggestion is really good and I’ll definitely chase the HV, thank you very much.

*come from

Hi,

I'm just wondering how your little one is getting on now? Has he started to make more eye contact now?

How is your baby now? I have similar concerns thank you x

Neither of ours made much eye contact as babies (it was sporadic depending on their attention even as older babies nevermind at 3 months) but both seem to have ok eye sight. 4 year olds is definitely perfect from eye test and 1 year old is very coordinated so assuming also fine.