Hi there. My baby is eight months old, and I’m really struggling with postpartum anxiety. I’ve seen doctors and changed medication several times nothing seems to help. Since the birth of my daughter, I’ve worried about her every single day. The anxiety is a thief that has taken away precious time with my baby who is growing so fast. It’s 2 AM right now, and I can’t sleep because I keep wearing. What if somethings wrong with her? Even before she was born, I had this intense fear that she might turn out to be on the spectrum. I know that it is not a death sentence, and all children are beautiful and special in their own way. I don’t mean any disrespect to any parents of children with ASD. This is just a fear that I’ve developed and I can’t overcome it no matter what I do every time I look at my daughter, I’m examining her and testing her to make sure that she isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. The problem is, it seems like everything she does to me is a sign of autism. When she was first born, her eyes kept crossing, and I read an article that children on the spectrum were more likely to have crossed eyes, and so I panicked. Then the eye Crossing settled itself, and I began to obsess over her eye iContact and social, smiling. The smiling is something that still triggers me till this day she smiles a lot and laughs too, but it never seems like enough for me at around six months of age, she started to flap her arms and twirl her fingers and wrists around that has been the new obsession and source of fear for the last few months. I’ve done and this research on Google, and for some reason it always points to autism. Many people have told me that it’s normal, but nothing will convince me I’ve spoken to her doctor, but all she can say is that it’s way too early that isn’t reassuring for me. That makes me feel like I just have to wait until the day they can tell me that something is wrong , I want my baby to interact and socialize with other children, but I can’t bring myself to see others because I constantly compare her to other babies and it causes me to Spiro. I feel like she’s different, but everyone is telling me that it’s my anxiety and that she’s perfectly fine. she’s met all of her milestones, but with big social ones coming up around nine months, I am terrified. Terrified isn’t even the word. Every day I stay in bed awake telling myself what if she never learn to clap? What if she never learns to point? What if she never learns to hand me toys? What if she stops babbling and Regreses? What if she never progresses from our growing to regular crawling? What if she stops making iContact? What if all her hand movements are in fact stimming ? I feel like I’m losing my mind and my heart is broken. I love my baby girl so much but being around her is really difficult because it triggers so much anxiety in me. I feel like I’m losing my mind and my heart is broken. I love my baby girl so much but being around her is really difficult because it triggers so much anxiety in me. I am guilty to say this, but deep inside, I ask God why is my baby so different? Why are my friends babies so perfect? Why are they so smiley ? I don’t know what I’m looking to get from this post, but I’m just a mom who is severely struggling and doesn’t know how to overcome this. I look back at pictures of my baby and cry because she has grown so much and all I can remember, is crying and worrying about her and every phase of her life so far, I don’t want to do this for the next year and a half. I want to be able to take my daughter places without hyper focussing on her similarities and differences with other children. I want to be able to look at my daughter without over, analyzing and questioning every single thing she does, or doesn’t do I wanna enjoy my precious girl.