Expert: Celtica - 11/24/2010

Question
have a baby that's 8 months and 1 week old now. I am writing to you
because I am a worried mother and I would love to hear an answer from you
based on your experience. I know what the milestones say and I have read so
many guidelines about development that I can't take no more. I have also
talked to our "children's nurse" who says every child is different. I know that,
and the reason why that answer from her is not easing my mind is because
she doesn't follow it up by any experience like "From my experience I would
say a baby really starts that around ... months and not exactly as the
milestones say" if you understand what I mean.

I don't want to feel alone in this anymore and I want to know how babies
develop in real life based on experience and not only what the guidelines say
that a baby should do or not do.

So, my son is 8 months and 1 week old. The thing I want to ask you about is
BABBLING which he doesn't do yet! Or at least I don't think he does. If I
understand it correctly babbling means repeating consonant and vowel
combinations like "Da-da-da" and "Ba-ba-ba". Well, he doesn't do this. What
he does is vocal play with vowels (Aaaa, Eeee, Oooo, Uuuh, Iiii). He makes alot
of sounds, much more than a few months ago. So he does make sounds and
play with his voice. And he blows raspberries ALOT. He sticks his tongue out
and blows and makes his shirt all wet from his saliva. Plus he squeels of joy.
Other than that he smiles most of the time and laughs. He HAS occasionally
said a few consonants like "Ga", "Giiii", "Ba", "Ma", "Kkiiuuuuu" but it's not on a
regular basis. He speaks the vowels and then every now and then I hear a
consonant like "Ga" or something. For example, in bed last night, I talked to
him and he talked back with his vowels and raspberries and just playing with
voice/mouth. And then suddenly I got huge butterflies in my stomach
because I heard a clear "MA" for the first time. But he said it once and then
went back to his vowels. He does this "Hhhheeeyy" thing alot. I think it's
because we say it all the time to him, he has been hearing it from birth
because when we look at him we say "Heeyyy" and now when he looks at us
he says that. My husband says that he says it to people on the TV too and
strangers sometimes. So what is my baby doing? Cooing, babbling or
something in between? Does it sound like he's on his way to the repetitive
babbling?

Let me tell you more about him. He is extremely social in the sense that he
loves attention - from us, his grandparents, uncles, auntie, cousins and even
some strangers that he finds interesting. Sometimes when we are out and he's
in his stroller he can see a stranger that he likes for whatever reason and he
starts smiling towards that stranger along with some cooing sounds. When he
sees someone he loves, like his daddy or grandma, he gets this BIG SMILE on
his face and his whole face lightens up, sometimes he even squeels of joy.

He smiles back at us and he often is the one smiling first too! So he smiles at
us, and we smile back at him. It's very easy to make him smile and very easy
to make him laugh. He doesn't know how to walk yet but he knows all about
the footwork because when we hold his arms and let him stand on the floor
he puts one foot in front of the other and just walks. Sometimes when I stand
in front of him and call him and someone else holds him like that in his arms
he gets so happy and starts walking very fast towards me with a big smile on
his face. He has a baby walker and masters that very good.

He laughs when I make funny faces and sounds. He laughs when I pretend to
sneeze and make the sound and say "Bless you" after that. He laughs when I
smell his feet and pretend they stink and make "Ewww" sounds to that. He
thinks it's hilarious! And when he's in his high chair I sometimes say "Uh-Oh,
I'm going to eat your feet now" and then I slowly go under him and nibble on
his feet and toes and he gets so so happy and smiles and laughs and moves
around. Sometimes I peek up from under there and look up at him through
the hole where his legs are and he tries to peek back through it and smiles.
He also enjoys peek-a-boo and smiles and is social during that. He even
played it himself a couple of time by putting cloth of his face and removing it
when we call him. And then doing it again because it was so fun when we said
peek-a-boo! He has done that maybe 4-5 times now.

When he's in his baby walker or high chair or on the floor or anywhere else
and he wants to be picked up his puts his arms up and reaches for us. So he's
very good at showing when he wants up.

Sometimes he cries when I leave him, like in the morning or evening when I
leave the room to prepare his bottle for him.  And he has cried a few times
after someone taking him from me. The past few weeks we have been
stroking his head and back to make him fall asleep and he loves it. And he
puts his head on my shoulder when he's tired or just wants a cuddle. He even
fell asleep while I gently kissed his face over and over and over again. He
loved it. And when wanting to fall asleep he loves playing with my hair and
then putting his arm over me, like around my neck while laying on the side
towards me.

He has very good eye contact I believe because most of the time he looks at
me when I say "look at mommy" and when I play with him he smiles and looks
me in the eye during the play and things like that. When I call his name he
responds immediately most of the time even though there are times when I
have to call him a few times, if he's engrossed in something but I can't
imagine that being weird. Even adults are that way. So he responds most of
the time.

He knows where his daddy is because when I ask him "Where's daddy?" he
always looks at him. He looks at me too when my husband asks where I am
but not as often as he looks at daddy when I ask but I believe it's because I'm
the one who's been asking where daddy is ALOT while my husband has asked
him where mommy is much less. Today he looked at the ball a couple of
times when I asked where the ball was. And I just recently started saying
"Ball, look this is your ball" to him. We have a bird and when I ask him where
the bird is he looks at the bird too.

He loves when I sing for him and he can get excited over some songs and
smile when I sing certain songs.

When he's in his baby walker and I say "Come, come to me" he walks towards
me. When I press a button on a toy or book a few times, he touches the
button too. When I do high five with my husband in front of him and then
look at him and go "High five?" he puts his hand up a bit and towards me like
he wants to do it too, and like he understands what I mean.

He seems to understand the word no quite good. If he bites (he chews on my
finger when he's teething) and I say no or "ouch" he stops, if he pulls my hair
and i say no, he usually stops. And other times when I say no he gives me this
look like he knows it wasn't something good he did.

When I'm eating and he wants it he opens his mouth like he's showing me.

He throws toys and looks for them when dropped, he bangs them on the
table, and he seems to understand his toys like his learning puppy with
buttons on his feet, because he keeps touching the dogs feet and then the
sounds turns on. He shakes rattles. He feeds himself fingerfood.

He seems interested when people talk, not only when they talk to him but
when talking to eachother as well, like he follows their discussions. And he
seems very interested in his environment and what's happening. When we
were to our children's nurse for measuring a week ago she smiled and said
"you are a very happy and alert boy aren't you?" because he was looking at
her, smiling, looking around and at us and just being very happy!

When he plays with a toy, let's say a car, and I start singing about a car or
make a sound that the car makes he looks up at me and smiles.

When I point at things from a distant, he sometimes look at the thing but
most of the time he looks at my finger until I touch the thing like the lamp for
example. When are they supposed to figure out what we are looking at and
pointing to from a distant?

He follows moving objects very good and people too. And our bird when he
flies above his head.

He doesn't imitate our sounds, he just smiles at me or says something else
back. Is that a problem? He doesn't imitate facial expressions really but I have
been sticking my tongue out for the past 2 days and he always did something
with his tongue like he WANTED to stick it out but didn't know how to. It was
moving and I just noticed how concentrated he was on it, but didn't stick it
out. He was interested though and wanted to. After 2 days he started sticking
it out all the time, and when I stuck mine out, he could stick his out, but not
all the time. Is that a form of imitating? And the "high five" thing he does, and
touching buttons we touch and so on, is that imitating too?

He doesn't crawl yet but he tries really hard, pushing with his feet and trying
to get up on his knees I guess but I don't think he likes being on his tummy
or on the floor too long. He wants to STAND, he is SO HAPPY when he gets to
stand up! He's becoming better and better at holding on to the sofa and
standing. But he falls after 20 seconds so he hasn't mastered it yet but I see
progress every day and a huge will to do it! He loves "walking" while we hold
his arms so it seems like he's VERY interested in learning how to stand and
walk and maybe he's busy on mastering that?

He's a professional at rolling and has been rolling both ways (from back and
tummy) before he was 3 months old. He rolls alot! I guess that's also how he
moves on the floor, pushing trying to crawl plus rolling, so he gets from point
A to point B this way.

He grabs things really well and is very good at transferring things from one
hand to another, grabs the handles on his feeding cup in front of him, for
example during feeding in his high chair, puts things in his mouth and works
to reach objects that are not near him. He can sit unassisted for a long period
of time and play with his toys and reach for them while sitting etc. He can pull
himself to sitting and standing when holding our hands (without us pulling
too, just him holding on to the hands and pulling himself). He turns to sounds
and notices when we enter or leave the room. He recognizes people really well
like I wrote earlier and express his joy very good with smiles and laughter.

That's about my boy :) I hope I remembered to write everything I wanted.

So my question is about the lack of babbling - Or IS it a lack of babbling?
Would you say my baby babbles or not? AND is this something to be
concerned about or can I relax? I just want to enjoy my son without this worry
so I would like to know from your experience, how common would you say
this is? 8 month old who doesn't say "Ba-ba-ba" yet and such? I had a
children's nurse say she noticed that comes around 8-9 months in her
experience and that it sounds completely normal to her.

And the imitating, would you say my baby imitates? And is he supposed to
imitate facial expressions or is he doing good imitating our behavior and
such? Does it sound okay to you?

Please let me know speaking from your experience, and not what the theory
says, because I know all about that, I have read way TOO many guidelines
about development and they only worry me!

Do you think I can relax and not worry?

Answer
Hi,

this is a question I really can't answer. I am just an adult with autism, not a nurse or doctor, and I don't know anything about early child development, typical or not.

I know lots of adults with autism, and have met a few (not many) families with older kids, but I have never met a family with a toddler/baby with autism ever (the youngest kid I have ever met was around 5), so I really don't have any experience with this.

I'm really sorry, and I hope one of the other experts here will be able to help you.

C.