Worried my four month old may be showing early autism signs

[Mumlife26]

My baby is 4 months old. Let me start by saying, if I had read one of these posts before I had my baby then I would have rolled my eyes and said that a 4 month old isn’t showing signs of autism.

However, I don’t understand how my baby can show these developmental signs and not receive a diagnosis in the future?

I am a teacher and my previous role was in an SEN base. Everyone in my family is saying I’m just focussing on things that every baby does but I am seeing them as signs of autism because of my experience.

Signs I’m seeing:

• Lack of eye contact. This is the biggest one. From about 10 weeks old, she will actively avoid eye contact when being held. Everyone told me that my baby would stare into my soul. Sometimes she will but only from a distance - on the changing table, from the play mat, in the pram but as soon as she is held she will actively avoid looking at me or whoever is holding her. She will move her head to the side to look away. She will not make eye contact when feeding at all really - she will very rarely. This is the hardest one for me because I am finding it quite difficult to bond as she would rather look anywhere else than at me. This hurts my child development brain as it’s really hard to engage/sing/chat to a baby who will not look at me.
• Her toes are constantly scrunched/curled. It’s not all the time but majority of the day, she will be keeping her toes scrunched and curled. She is able to flatten them however a lot of the time she keeps them in this position. I am worried this is sensory and is this the start of tiptoe walking? She also keeps her thumbs tucked when reaching or grabbing things.
• She stiffens her body when excited or angry. She will make fists with her hands and hold them out in front of her and shake slightly and straighten her legs. At first I thought she is so excited, she doesn’t know what to do with her body. But I watched a TikTok video and the first sign a lady noticed in her baby was stiffening. So obviously now I’m hyper alert to this and it’s just added to the signs.
• She is happy to entertain herself. She doesn’t seek attention and will happily lay on her playmat for a while without looking for me or wanting attention. When she wakes in the morning she will just lay in the next to me looking around or making noises to herself until I go in to get her. Shes happy looking at the light fitting or the curtains.
• In general, only cries if she is very hungry or very tired. I’ve heard this is a sign.
• She is an extremely fussy feeder. It is a struggle to get her to finish a bottle. She turns her head away. Spits the bottle out. Wriggles around.
• Extreme reactions to loud sounds e.g hair dryer / someone sneezing / most recently the hand dryer.
• Now I feel like I’m noticing stimming such as rubbing her feet together and her hands seem quite twirly.
• She also arches her back away when being held. Is quite stiff in general.
• She rolled front to back at 3.5 months for 2 days and she hasn’t done it again. Is this a regression of skills? She isn’t rolling back to front although I know this is up to 6 month skill.
• Shes not laughing or giggling.

Things I’m not worried about.

• She is a very smiley happy baby.
• She can be very engaged when not being held - when she is laying down, she will look and give lovely smiles and chat to you.
• great eye tracking. Will follow you around the room, up the stairs. We call her nosy rosy because she is always watching when someone is walking around the room.
• She sleeps 12 hrs at night with 1 or 2 wake ups.
• Holds her head up
• Grabs toys, bats at toys. Will reach for toys when doing tummy time. Brings hands to mouth. Able to put toys in mouth.
• Can be chatty - although it feels like this has got less the past few weeks and she can be quiet.

Im actually not sure what the point of this post is. If it was one or two signs then I wouldn’t be as worried but having so many signs (there are more but those are the most concerning) I’m a concerned mum who wants to support my baby in the best way. Does anyone have any experience of these developments in a baby? How can I support my baby? Thank you for reading.

Is there autism in your or the father's family? It's highly genetic.

Google retained reflexes not going dormant
try cranial oestopathy

Everything you describe OP sounds very much like my DS1 - the stiffening, batting things, tracking and smiling but looking away when he was held close up, turning is head away from feeds sometimes - and having zero knowledge of autism at the time, I wasn’t looking for signs and thought nothing of any of it. In fact he’s not autistic, and whether your DD happens to be autistic or not, I don’t think any of the above are an indication of anything. It’s hard these days, with so much awareness and, it seems, so much more to consider, but try not to worry too much.

I am not sure you can read much into these signs, if your child is ND there isn’t much you can do at that point (but NOT spending all your time worrying about it will be much better for both you and your child) and it’s not some sort of terrible disaster if they ARE ND

I also have a baby boy aged 4 months who I have no developmental concerns about (do have SEN knowledge) and also two older daughters.
He also rolled afew times front to back but hasn't done it much since.Although he makes eye contact, he doesn't quite laugh yet.Many of what you mention seems normal for a 4mth old with afew things that MIGHT signal Autism but not necessarily.

My eldest daughter has high functioning ASD & ADHD but there were zero symptoms at that age other than she was a very high needs baby, so actually the opposite of yours, and slept badly.

My 2nd daughter is nearly 5 and showing no obvious signs of being neurodiverse, yet as a baby she did this funny thing which looked like 'stimming" where she kind of hovered her fists like a bee buzzing in front of her face and went cross eyed as she stared at them, maybe stiffened too.It did look like excitement.

They are all so different and all you can do is watch, wait, see what happens and go from there.

My son was diagnosed autistic young (2), honestly - its rare to get one at this stage. You have a really stressful few years ahead if you worry like this. Just focus on being the kindest mum you can, and the mum your little one needs.

Forgot to say my eldest has always been scared of loud noises since a baby- a hand dryer went off loudly near her head when she was a newborn and she screamed....she is still scared of them now at 9yo.So not sure if her fears of hand dryers are from being traumatised by that, or ASD caused the fear if you see what I mean.

Hi OP, in hindsight there were definitely signs with my second that were evident at 4 months and similar to some of what you describe. 1) no eye contact or interest in me at all when feeding (whereas first would bat at my face and look at me), 2) no copying whereas even newborns will stick their tongue out if the caregiver does and 3) no reciprocal interactions (eg taking it in turns to make faces or make noises). Also unusually good at self-soothing and would fall asleep on own from birth. In other ways he was very sociable. He was smiley and happy, would laugh at games, it was just the lack of copying and reciprocity.

However equally I don’t think there is any point in you worrying or getting upset at this stage as it might be nothing. Also although there can be a lot of negativity in the popular culture about kids with ASD, our children are all wonderful and unique and I would not change anything about DS for the world. The only thing I would have done differently if I had known earlier is I would have spent more time on games that encourage reciprocity (all in a fun way). He did get there in the end but as others have said his development was in an unusual order and the ability to copy only kicked in shortly before starting school.

Just a point on the rolling - my DS rolled for the first time front to back at 2 months. I couldn't believe it. When I looked into, I found that rolling before 5 months is usually accidental, due to momentum and a heavy head. DS did it a few times then stopped, and started rolling intentionally again around 5/6 months. It's not a regression.