13 Week Old Hardly Smiles

[BeautifulRose]

My son was born 5 weeks early on May 29th 5lbs 6oz no problems never went to the NICU and left with me. He is over all very healthy, breastfed and already 14lbs...

But he hardly ever smiles. I have seen him smile maybe 10 times ever. My mom claims he smiled at her 3 times in an hour when she had him. I am so nervous about autisim. He makes alot of eye contact and baby talks/coos all the time. But just never a smile. Ive tried talking tickling playing and nothing works. Hes VERY gassy so idk if maybe his belly just hurts so he doesnt smile much. He just always has an angry look on his face.

Any advice or experiances anyone could possibly give would be appreciated. I just want my baby to be ok.

 

[_Meep_]

Being five weeks early, that would make him 8 weeks adjusted, right? Most babies first smile at about 6-8 weeks, so the fact that he is smiling already is a great sign.

Mine smiled at four weeks. But for a couple of months after that we rarely saw a smile. She definitely didn't smile every day.

It was the same with laughing. It was very hard to get her to reliably laugh for a month or two after she treated us to her first.

Now, at 13.5 months, she smiles and laughs all the time and definitely has no signs of autism. I promise you, with 99.9% certainty, that your baby will be the same. It would be near impossible, at least without the potential benefit of hindsight in the future, to detect autism in a baby as young as yours. Please don't worry.

 

[tulip1975]

Yes, you need to adjust the 5 weeks when looking at developmental milestones. No need to worry yet.

 

[Literati_Love]

I think that sounds very normal. My dd smiled extremely early but I remember it took a few months before she smiled ALL the time. They were hard
to get out of her at first.

 

[calm]

One my twins didn't smile much either, and I had similar worries, they also came 5 weeks early. It took him to 8 months to be a big smiler, and now he is always smiling. (he did smile before, but just not as often as his twin, neither would he look at us as much as his twin). I am always worrying so I can totally understand

 

[BeautifulRose]

I guess he was just waiting for me to get worried enough to post here because the last few days I have been getting smile and dare I say.. laughs. thanks ofor all your advice and putting up with my ol worrisome self.

 

[_Meep_]

Aw, so glad he is smiling and even laughing! It's always the way - as soon as you tell someone, they instantly stop doing whatever it was that was worrying you! Mine is the same.