What were you like as a baby?

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This reminds me of the time my mom told me that she lost me in the house while my family was moving because I was such a calm and quiet baby. I started walking at 9 months, and was reading very early too. She said I would just sit there and stare at books for hours on end as a toddler.

The most terrible irony at being such an early walker is the fact that to this day I struggle to walk. I am constantly tripping over my own feet and come close to mechanically falling a few times a week due to poor balance and depth perception.

Last edited by perpetual_padawan on 24 May 2014, 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

My mum's retrospective remarks on me as a baby in point form:

Infant:
-quiet
- didn't put my arms around my mum when she held me
-little eye contact
-had a blue elephant doll that I liked to eat
- 'didn't know how to play" -didn't play normally

Toddler:
-loud, screamed ,talked (when I could), sang, made noise to self a lot
- liked to be taken for rides in the car, the motion would stop screaming, induce sleep like with many babies
-didn't sleep well
-un-folded towels in cupboards and unfolded paired socks and laid them out in a row
- a lot of hand flapping and weird finger motions and twirling a string in front of my eyes
- appeared disengaged, abstracted, in own little world

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 23 May 2014, 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I appeared normal and happy until about 23 months. I was slightly delayed in walking, but that was about it. I interacted, I'd play pretend with toys (there's a picture of me making a pretend phone call), etc. Then at 23 months, my mum noticed I was not putting words together and that I would jabber a lot. However, at the time, the doctors didn't think there was much concern since there was evidence that despite the speech delay I was developing normal pre-speech and pre-social behaviors. It wouldn't be until age 3 or 4 that I'd actually start putting words together and I would often use nonsense utterances while gesturing.

Nevertheless, I did some bad stuff. I sprayed my sister in the eyes with Cleanix when I was 2 or 3 causing her to cry--we actually have or did have a video of me doing that. I don't remember that at all. My first memory followed my 4th birthday, when I was excited about going to a bowling alley and was running back and forth until I overstepped (or something) and fell, hitting my forehead on the coffee table. My sister and I were being babysat at that time and the babysitter called 911 and I was taken to the emergency room by ambulance, where I remember first looking to my left and seeing a girl and having a strange feeling in my stomach as I watched her--I felt a sort of kinship with her for some reason--and a man in a white coat put some gold very thick liquid-like thing in my forehead. After that, memories ceased until I woke up one morning. I noticed even when I woke up that morning, that I had no memory of any events that had occurred previously, except for when I hit my head on the coffee table. My mum would still feed me baby formula even though I was 4.5 years of age or older, but mainly because I would plead for it.

I remember in preschool feeling enraptured by a math book. Reading the math book and focusing on it made me feel at peace, a port in the storm, as it were. I would take a pencil and solve the addition and subtraction problems, then I got to a page I didn't understand (but would later recall as being about inequalities) and stopped, but I still kept my focus on the math book. I also remember stabbing a girl in the face with a pencil at another preschool, but I don't remember why or anything like that. In fact, when I recall that incident, it seems strange and distant, like the world had gone silent and the girl looked up and my hand with the pencil moved toward her face; it was like I was watching myself in 3rd person as I stabbed her. This was actually a preschool for precocious children and that act got me kicked out.

Then I entered Kindergarten and it all went to heck.

I stayed up all night just like I do now a days. That's about all I know.

Apparently I didn?t cry a lot. I loved being picked up and held, and I loved attention. When I was in my play pen and my mother left the room, I?d cry and stop the moment she returned. I always wanted to be with them. I loved jumping.
I started babbling at the start of my second month, and I said my first word before I turned 1. I didn?t start using sentences until I was 2 ½ and according to my mother I didn?t start saying more and more words, I just went from single or two words to sentences.
I was late with crawling and didn?t do it a lot at all, according to my mother. She thought it might be painful for me.
When I was about a year I was didn?t get sleepy until about 17:00 so she couldn?t get me to nap. That lead to me almost falling asleep before and during dinner, so she had to use a lot of ?look there!? etc. Then she took me out to play for a little while until she could put me to bed. If she had allowed me to sleep that late, I was ready to start the new day around midnight, so she had to keep me awake, since I just wasn?t tired and couldn?t nap earlier in the day. I soon was able to last all day. So it amazes me when I hear of 5 years old taking naps.
Apparently I always loved cars and riding in them. I also liked trains it turned out when we moved.

Very Colicky
I blame all my problems on being raised on Dr. Spock's baby books. Since nobody else has I'll blame him for my Autism also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock

That´s funny. My mom gave me exactly the same story.: "Self sufficient baby". I absolutely didn´t want contact just like that, - looked very angry and tried to poke people in the eyes, when they invaded my privacy in the cradle/stroller, and I wanted to do things myself. I was social, but definately on my own terms.
Milestones were average, apart from my only savant trait, - music.
As a small baby, I had a very strong, direct look, I am told. Later on, when I was a toddler it was called "dreamy".

Just wondering, does this bother you (or anyone in the same situation) at all? My mum was a great mum- taught me how to act in public, took us bike riding, windsurfing, did crafty things, gave us healthy meals, a lovely home and I knew she was there for advice and comfort IF I needed her (which I never felt like I did), but until I discovered AS I didn't understand why I didn't feel that 'pull' to have her there when I hurt myself etc.

Even though I have a much worse memory for "timelines"/numbers and would not remember when an event occurred to anyone, I can't imagine that I'll forget when my baby said her first word, or step, and have some specific memories of what they did as toddlers etc. It seems like I was not one of my mums "special interests"? And if she asked me and I couldn't remember, I would rush off to find the baby book that's "around here somewhere" to show them how important it is to me. She's definitely a BAP (broader autistic phenotype) but it's so annoying when you're obsessed with child development and have never been able to use yourself as a reference!

I thought maybe she has intentionally blocked that period of her life out as she had a terrible relationship with my dad? But she does the same when i ask her about her current job (she works in mental health). Is this disinterest how she learned to deal with me constantly asking questions and disregarding her answers "well that doesn't make sense because I think xyz"?

Are refrigerator mothers just a response to their refrigerator babies?

Pretty sure I was like a baby.

A few things my mum has told me about when I was a baby...

1. I would only ever eat lamb casserole and chocolate pudding baby foods (the little jars). Nothing else, ever. She didn't put a timeframe on how long this lasted.

2. I only ever had the one dummy (pacifier). It was brown (1977) and when it eventually wore out and my mum replaced it, I refused to accept it. She tried the same brand and colour, but no dice. So i never took to another one.

3. When I was approximately 18 months old, I would have endless conversations with "someone" invisible. My mum is convinced it was a ghost or something. I personally don't believe in ghosts, so whatever. I think that's the closest I got to an imaginary friend. She did say that I stopped talking to this "person" when we moved house when I was 2.

Yep. My mother remembers some things but not everything. It's really annoying because I'm pretty much obsessed with exactly how and when I did this and that. I have a book called 'the book about me' where she could have filled out all of those things, but she only filled in some and has forgotten some, and I want so desperately to know it all.

I cried until I was put down. And everything went into my mouth, except food.

It's possible.

It's also possible that the phenomenon once names refrigerator mothers may have been mothers with ASD symptoms themselves.





My mother didn't record and cannot remember much about my early life, either. I think it is most largely because I was not the first child in the family. She didn't have time to write it down. And no one can remember that.

I was a typical baby. I can tell that was true from looking at the photos of me as a baby. We have lots of photos, and in most of them I was smiling happily and always looking playful. I reached all the milestones at the averages stages, and no noticeable AS symptoms displayed until I was 4.

Hasn´t the idea of refrigrator moms causing autism in kids been abandoned?

^I thought so too.

Oh yeah, it's completely wrong! I was just wondering if that's where the idea came from- that the baby's needs made the mother SEEM distant.

And I do think it is also to do with a lot of the mums being on the spectrum too.