18 month old rolling eyes upwards at times, is this normal?

[msck123456]

Hi everyone,

My daughter recently started rolling her eyes upward and seems to happened at random times. Usually is when she is tired and falling asleep or waking up, but sometimes also when she is playing or eating. At the beginning I thought that teething is causing her pain, but I am not sure now if is not due to developmental phase. She is acting normally after that, doesn’t seems bother or not getting stiff.
Did your little one experience something similar ?
She is 18 months old.

I think you should talk to your HV or GP about this. It may be something as simple as her having trouble focusing when she is tired and possibly needing prescription glasses but no, it's not normal toddler behaviour.

I would worry it was a seizure. If people have seizures having them close to when they wake up and go to sleep is quite common.

Not something I've come across with my children either. Is she fully alert when doing it?

Yes, she is

I would try and get on video and show to a health visitor

https://www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-types/absence-seizures

I think this is what I was thinking of.

‘They may come and go so quickly that no one notices anything wrong. Or observers may mistake the symptoms for simple daydreaming or not paying attention’

and

‘Absence seizures usually affect only a person’s awareness of what is going on during the actual seizure, with immediate recovery’

It might not be this at all but I’d want to rule
it out.

Thank you everyone for responding. I’ve made video and waiting now for call back from 111 as I couldn’t get GP appointment

Hi op, my child also had this at around the same age. We went to our GP and was referred to paediatrics. We were then seen by them within 2 weeks.
My son did the eye-rolling thing while we were in seeing the paediatric doctor. Doctor was able to establish they didn’t think it was a seizure, can be normal part of toddler growth. We were asked to monitor and go back to GP if symptoms got worse.
Im pleased to report we didn’t need to go back to GP. My son grew out of it within 6 months. He is 3 now with no further eye issues.
Please see your GP to get it checked asap. Hopefully it’s nothing to worry about.

My son did this when little at times. I filmed it on my mobile and showed it to the doctors. They weren’t concerned. He doesn’t do it now x

It's very concerning and it looks like a seizure. I hope you get it sorted asap.

Thank you for all responses. We’ve been seen by GP which saw a video and also she did it as we were there and he said that it doesn’t look like seizure. He thinks she might have a weak muscle in her eyes as she tends to do in one direction. We already made appointment for ophthalmologist and she has her appointment in a month as she did tilt her head around 3 months ago and GP wanted ruled out squint. My mum has a squint and her brother also, so it could be inherited from her as her eye muscle are also weaker.

Unfortunately I couldn’t upload a video and on that picture it looks like she rolled her eyes and freezes, but that’s not a case. It looks more like she looks up and carrying on what she is doing or even still doing while she is looking upwards.

Our twins girls started doing this and found they both had incredibly lazy eyes, they both had patches from 18months and glasses from age 3 now at 5 one twin has almost no lazy eyes at all even with glasses off but the other one is still quite bad in one eye and there talking about trying very strong lens and patch again

Glad you’ve got some answers OP