Social development concerns - 7 weeks

Hi. I have 7-week-old twins (born three weeks early), a boy and a girl. I'm concerned about their social development. They aren't cooing yet. They don't look up at me while nursing (well, the girl does every now and then). They do make eye contact, although very briefly (just a few seconds) and with effort on our part. They will sometimes track our faces with their eyes, but they will not focus on or track a toy if passed in front of them. They flashed their first smiles about a week ago but they are few and far between. I'm just wondering if I should be concerned?????

 

Don't worry!!! Just keep interacting with them: talking, singing, playing, and they will return the favor soon.

 

I wouldn't worry at all at this point. My kids didn't coo or track things at that age. I think they were more like 3 months, maybe even older (I was pretty sleep deprived then!). Now they are 2.5 and hitting all their milestones in the 3-3.5 age range, so they are definitely okay.

 

No worries! I don't know if yours were born early or not, but you should take that into account too, even if it was only 2 wks early. Check out this chart and notice that babies learn/do things at different times, so give them extra time to hit a milestone and if you're still worried just talk to the doc.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_milestone-chart-1-to-6-months_1496585.bc

 

My girls are just 5.5 weeks old (born @ 39 weeks). If you take into account that yours were born a little earlier, they should be in a similar spot developmentally. The only thing hat my girls do that you mentioned is make eye contact and that is almost always initiated by us. I heard maybe 1 coo from each of them yesterday but that's the only time. So I wouldn't worry too much. But you can always mention it at their next checkup to see if their dr is concerned.

 

If you take into account that they were 3 weeks early, that makes them only 4 weeks old and that makes them totally normal! Every week counts at this stage! My girls were also 4 weeks early and it seemed so silly to me to adjust their age when other people have to adjust two or three months(!) but really, every week does count. One of my twins is also consistently about 7-10 days 'behind' developmentally than the other one, but I just remind myself that if they were singletons I wouldn't be concerned at all, because I wouldn't be comparing in the first place.