Hi all,
I've found a post from 2019 from a mum who was very worried about her 3 months old son and here I am in 2024 also worried about my child. Her post was an exact description of what I see in my 2 month old daughter. I wish I could message her and ask how is her boy doing now, but apparently I can't, so I'm writing this post as a personal cry for help and some clarification.
My daughter is 8 weeks old, and I know that "it's too early to jump into conclusions" but I am desperate for answers. I know there are parents with ASD confirmed and maybe you would recognize some of the behaviours I mention below.
My girl doesn't cry much and if she does, she gives up after a few weak attempts to attract attention and just keeps quiet for a while till she makes another weak-ish attempt. She does have a wicked hour every evening at the sunset when she cries quite loudly and wants to be carried around till asleep. She shows very little discomfort from a dirty or wet nappy, she sort of makes a few unhappy sounds and stops.
She also avoids looking into the eyes and faces generally and prefers to look away as soon as she meets your eye. She loves to stare in the window and at the lights and absolutely adores black and white pictures. I want to clarify that she does look into the eyes and can even smile if she's in a good mood, but she would mostly look away and try to avoid or ignore people who try to attract her attention. I did notice that it's easier to catch her gaze while she's on the changing matt, that's where I got most of her smiles. Also she doesn't look at me when I pick her up or feed her, she looks either in the window behind my back or into my shirt.
Most alerting for me is that she is ok to spend some very extended periods of time on her own. I put her in babybjorn and do my things around the house while she would just sit there quietly looking around. Also when I come to pick her up after being away she doesn't seem to be excited or interested.
She doesn't mind me but she's not excited about me either. She sleeps on my chest after being fed and falls asleep when I carry her around and when she does cry she calms down when I pick her up. But I don't see too many emotions to be honest.
Physically she appears to do well: breastfed, puts on weight, growing, tummy time, rolls over from tummy to the back... silently again...
This is my second child and the reason I am so concerned is because I have something to compare to. My first baby was crying all the time, was clingy and wouldn't let me go not for a second, so this is a very unusual behaviour for me.
To be honest I am quite confident that this child is on the spectrum, I am just frustrated that no doctor would confirm the diagnosis to us in the next 1,5-2 years. This is why I'm here, I wonder whether there are parents who experienced similar behaviours in their kids who received their diagnosis later.
I of course also have some hope that she might turn out just fine, but to be honest that hope is fainting more I read about ASD. I am so sad and frustrated at this point, I would appreciate every piece of information.
Thank you for reading this enormously long post.