Eye Contact Baby 7 weeks

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if this sounds like normal behaviour. My little baby girl is nearly 7 weeks old. She mostly makes good eye contact when feeding, changing nappy, playing and talking. Sometimes however, she will be looking the other direction and when I start talking to her, she wont respond by turning and looking at me. I have even stroked her on the cheek to see if she will turn, and she doesn't. Her hearing was tested in the hospital and it was fine. She is generally like this when she first wakes up. I would say that she makes eye contact with me about 70% of the time when we are together. She does also spend a lot of time looking around the room and staring at the wall or the venetians. I just wanted to see what your thoughts are and what other babies this age are doing.
Thanks in advance,
Emma

Hi Emma - my 10 week old is a great "starer" - especially if he is looking at/towards a light or window. What your DD is doing sounds normal to me!

Perfectly normal :)

My DS2 will even go so far as to deliberately turn he's head away if you try to put yourself in he's line of sight ;)

Thanks for your replies,

Misty, your son was born on the same day as my daughter! Looks like they're on the same page.

Just wondering if these are common too:
- smiles are hard to come by (we really have to work hard and do funny things to get one)
- her hands are clinched most of the time (she has them relaxed when she is drowsy or sleeping) but has them clinched when she is feeding, being changed, or excited by something.

Thanks again!

I believe that at 7 weeks she can't identify where a sound is coming from very well (maybe not at all?). That skill takes some time to come in.

She is also unable to think about a couple of things at once. No multitasking at all!

So if she's concentrating on something in one direction and you speak to her from the other direction, she really doesn't realise that you are talking to her, or where you actually are. This has nothing to do with her hearing, everything to do with her brain development.

If you are interested, there is a book called The Wonder Weeks that is about brain development in babies, and also about when to expect and how to deal with the inevitable fussy stages and the times when baby is learning lots of new things very fast. It's a good read, not difficult, and really really interesting, if you are into that kind of thing. It has a lot of discussion about what things to expect your baby to be doing at different stages, as her brain develops new abilities.

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Thanks for your replies,

Misty, your son was born on the same day as my daughter! Looks like they're on the same page.

Just wondering if these are common too:
- smiles are hard to come by (we really have to work hard and do funny things to get one)
- her hands are clinched most of the time (she has them relaxed when she is drowsy or sleeping) but has them clinched when she is feeding, being changed, or excited by something.

Thanks again!

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My firstborn didn't smile for 3 months after being born. It really depends on the baby as to when they smile and how much. They have individual personalities even at this age.

There are a whole bunch of us with babies born around the same dates, you should come and join us for a chat in the Babies born 1st-15thAugust 2009 thread.