The Wonder Weeks

Eight predictable leaps in your
baby’s mental development

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Contents

Introduction

Jolted from a deep sleep, the new mother leaps from her bed and runs down the hall to the nursery. Her tiny infant, red-faced, fists clenched, screams in his crib. On instinct, the mother picks up the baby, cradling him in her arms. The baby continues to shriek. The mother nurses the baby, changes his diaper, then rocks him, trying every trick to ease his discomfort, but nothing seems to work. "Is there something wrong with the baby?" the mother wonders. "Am I doing something wrong?"

Parents commonly experience worry, fatigue, aggravation, guilt, and sometimes even aggression toward their inconsolable infants. The baby's cries may cause friction between the parents, especially when they disagree on how to deal with it. Well-meant but unwelcome advice from family, friends, and even strangers only makes things worse. "Let him cry, it's good for his lungs" is not the solution mothers wish to hear. Disregarding the problem does not make it go away.

The Good News: There Is a Reason

For the past 35 years, we have studied the development of babies and the way mothers and other caregivers respond to their changes. Our research was done in homes, where we observed the daily activities of mothers and children. We gleaned further information from more formal interviews.

Our research has shown that from time to time all parents are plagued by a baby who won't stop crying. In fact, we found that, surprisingly, all normal, healthy babies are more tearful, troublesome, demanding, and fussy at the same ages, and when this occurs they may drive the entire household to despair. From our research, we are now able to predict, almost to the week, when parents can expect their babies to go through one of these "fussy phases."

During these periods, a baby cries for a good reason. She is suddenly undergoing drastic changes in her development, which are upsetting to her. These changes enable the baby to learn many new skills and should therefore be a reason for celebration. After all, it's a sign that she is making wonderful progress. But as far as the baby is concerned, these changes are bewildering. She's taken aback—everything has changed overnight. It is as if she has entered a whole new world.

It is well known that a child's physical development progresses in what we commonly call "growth spurts." A baby may not grow at all for some time, but then she'll grow a quarter inch in just one night. Research has shown that essentially the same thing happens in a child's mental development. Neurological studies have shown that there are times when major, dramatic changes take place in the brains of children younger than 20 months. Shortly after each of them, there is a parallel leap forward in mental development.

This book focuses on the eight major leaps that every baby takes in her first 14 months of life. It tells you what each of these developments mean for your baby's understanding of the world about her and how she uses this understanding to develop the new skills that she needs at each stage in her development.

What This Means for You and Your Baby

Parents can use this understanding of their baby's developmental leaps to help them through these often confusing times in their new lives. You will better understand the way your baby is thinking and why he acts as he does at certain times. You will be able to choose the right kind of help to give him when he needs it and the right kind of environment to help him make the most of every leap in his development.

This is not a book about how to make your child into a genius, however. We firmly believe that every child is unique and intelligent in his own way. It is a book on how to understand and cope with your baby when he is difficult and how to enjoy him most as he grows. It is about the joys and sorrows of growing with your baby.

All that's required to use this book is:

• One (or two) loving parent(s)
• One active, vocal, growing baby
• A willingness to grow along with your baby
• Patience.

How to Use This Book

This book grows with your baby. You can compare your experiences with those of other mothers during all stages of your baby's development. Over the years, we've asked many mothers of new babies to keep records of their babies' progress and also to record their thoughts and feelings as well as observations of their babies' behavior from day to day. The diaries we've included in this book are a sample of these, based on the weekly reports of mothers of 15 babies—eight girls and seven boys. We hope you will feel that your baby is growing alongside those in our study group and that you can relate your observations of your baby to those of other mothers.

However, this book is not just for reading. Each section offers you the opportunity to record the details of your baby's progress. By the time a baby has grown into middle childhood, many mothers yearn to recall all of the events and emotions of those first all-important years. Some mothers keep diaries, but most mothers—who are not particularly fond of writing or who simply lack the time—are convinced they will remember the milestones and even the minor details in their babies' lives. Unfortunately, later on these mothers end up deeply regretting the fact that their memories faded faster than they could ever have imagined.

You can keep a personal record of your baby's interests and progress in the "My Diary" sections provided throughout this book. They offer space for you to record your thoughts and comments on your child's growth and budding personality, so that you can easily turn this book into a diary of the development of your baby. Often, a few key phrases are enough to bring memories flooding back later on.

The next chapter, "Growing Up: How Your Baby Does It" explains some of the research on which this book is based and how it applies to your baby. You will learn how your baby grows by making "leaps" in her mental development and how these are preceded by stormy periods when you can expect her to be fussy, cranky, or temperamental.

"Chapter 2: Newborn: Welcome to the World" describes what a newborn's world is like and how she perceives the new sensations that surround her. You will learn how nature has equipped her to deal with the challenges of life and how important physical contact is to her future development. These facts will help you get to know your new baby, to learn about her wants and needs, and to understand what she is experiencing when she takes the first leap forward.

Subsequent chapters discuss the Wonder Weeks—the eight big changes your baby undergoes in the first 14 months of life, at around 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, and 55 weeks. Each chapter tells you the signs that will let you know that a major leap is occurring. Then they explain the new perceptual changes your baby experiences at this time and how your baby will make use of them in his development.

Each leap is discussed in a separate chapter, consisting of four sections:

"This Week's Fussy Signs" describes the clues that your baby is about to make a developmental leap. Reflections from other mothers about their babies' troublesome times offer sympathetic support as you endure your baby's stormy periods.

In this section, you'll also find a diary section titled "Signs My Baby Is Growing Again." Check off the signs you've noticed that indicate your baby is about to experience a big change.

"The Magical Leap Forward" discusses the new abilities your baby will acquire during the current leap. In each case it's like a new world opening up, full of observations she can make and skills she can acquire.

In this section, you will find a diary section, "How My Baby Explores the New World," which lists the skills that babies can develop once they have made this developmental leap. As you check off your baby's skills on the lists, remember that no baby will do everything listed. Your baby may exhibit only a few of the listed skills at this time, and you may not see other skills until weeks or months later. How much your baby does is not important—your baby will choose the skills best suited to her at this time. Tastes differ, even among babies! As you mark or highlight your own baby's preferences, you will discover what makes your baby unique.

"What You Can Do to Help" gives you suggestions for games, activities, and toys appropriate to each stage of development which will increase your baby's awareness and satisfaction—and enhance your playtime together.

"After the Leap" lets you know when you can expect your baby to become more independent and cheerful again. This is likely to be a delightful time for parents and babies, when both can appreciate the newly acquired skills that equip the baby to learn about and enjoy her world.

This book is designed to be picked up at any point in your baby's first year when you feel you need help understanding her current stage of development. You do not have to read it from cover to cover. If your baby is a little older, you can skip the earlier chapters.

What This Book Offers You

We hope that you will use this knowledge of your child's developmental leaps to understand what he is going through, help him through the difficult times, and encourage him as he takes on the momentous task of growing into a toddler. Also, we hope that this book helps provide the following.

Support in times of trouble. During the times that you have to cope with crying problems, it helps to know that you are not alone, that there is a reason for the crying, and that a fussy period never lasts more than a few weeks, and sometimes no longer than several days. This book tells you what other mothers experienced when their babies were the same age as yours. You will learn that all mothers struggle with feelings of anxiety, aggravation, and a whole range of other emotions. You will come to understand that these feelings are all part of the process, and that they will help your baby progress.

Self-confidence. You will learn that you are capable of sensing your baby's needs better than anyone else. You are the expert, the leading authority on your baby.

Help in understanding your baby. This book will tell you what your baby endures during each fussy phase. It explains that he will be difficult when he's on the verge of learning new skills, as the changes to his nervous system start to upset him. Once you understand this, you will be less concerned about and less resentful of his behavior. This knowledge will also give you more peace of mind and help you to help him through each of these fussy periods.

Hints on how to help your baby play and learn. After each fussy period, your baby will be able to learn new skills. He will learn faster, more easily, and with more pleasure if you help him. This book will give you insight into what is preoccupying him at each age. On top of that, we supply a range of ideas for different games, activities, and toys so that you can choose those best suited to your baby.

A unique account of your baby's development. You can track your baby's fussy phases and progress throughout the book and supplement it with your own notes, so that it charts your baby's progress during the first 14 months of his life.

We hope that you will use this knowledge of your child's developmental leaps to understand what he is going through, help him through the difficult times, and encourage him as he takes on the momentous task of growing into a toddler. Also, we hope you will be able to share with him the joys and challenges of growing up.

Most of all, we hope you will gain peace of mind and confidence in your ability to bring up your baby. We hope this book will be a reliable friend and an indispensable guide in the crucial first year of your baby's life.

Growing Up: How Your Baby Does It

page 1:

Watching their babies grow is, for many parents, one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences of their lives. Parents love to record and celebrate the first time their babies sit up, crawl, say their first words, feed themselves, and a myriad of other precious "firsts."

But few parents stop to think about what's happening in their babies' minds that allows them to learn these skills when they do. We know that a baby's perception of the world is growing and changing when she suddenly is able to play peek-a-boo or to recognize Grandma's voice on the telephone. These moments are as remarkable as the first time she crawls, but even more mysterious because they involve things happening inside her brain that we cannot see. They're proof that her brain is growing as rapidly as her chubby little body.

But every parent discovers sooner or later that the first year of life can be a bumpy road. While parents revel in their children's development and share their joy as they discover the world around them, parents also find...

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This chapter is reproduced in its entirety, complete with the chart that shows your baby's 8 great fussy phases on pages 96 through 105 in the Book of Readings.

Newborn: Welcome to the World

Watch any new mother when she holds her baby for the first time. Chances are she'll follow this particular pattern: First she'll run her fingers through his hair. Then she'll run a finger around his head and over his face. After this, she'll feel his fingers and toes. Then she'll slowly move toward his middle, along his arms, legs, and neck. Finally, she'll touch his tummy and chest.

The way in which mothers generally touch their newborn babies is often very similar, too. First a new mother will touch her infant with her fingertips only, stroking and handling him very gently. Slowly but surely, as she becomes more comfortable, she'll use all of her fingers and may sometimes squeeze him. Finally, she'll touch him with the palm of her hand. When she eventually dares to hold him by the chest or tummy, the new mother will be so delighted that she may exclaim what a miracle it is that she has produced something as precious as this.

Ideally, this discovery process should happen as close to birth as possible. After a mother's first encounter with her baby, she will no longer be

Wonder Week 5:
The World of Changing Sensations

For much of the last 4 or 5 weeks, you have watched your infant grow rapidly. You have become acquainted with each other, and you have learned all of his little ways. His world at this time is hard for adults to imagine. It's in soft focus and its qualities are undefined—in some ways it has not been so different from his life in your womb.

Now, before the mists that envelop his infant world part and allow him to start making sense of all the impressions that he has been busy absorbing in the last few weeks, he will need to go through his first major developmental leap. At about 5 weeks, and sometimes as early as 4, your baby will begin to take the first leap forward in his development.

New sensations bombard your baby inside and out, and he is usually bewildered by them. Some of these new things have to do with the development of his internal organs and his metabolism. Others are a result of his increased alertness—his senses are more sensitive than they were immediately after birth. So it is not so much the sensations themselves that are changing, but rather the baby's perceptions of them.

Wonder Week 8:
The World of Patterns

Sometime around 8 weeks, your baby will begin to experience the world in a new way. He will become able to recognize simple patterns in the world around him and in his own body. Although it may be hard for us to imagine at first, this happens in all the senses, not just vision. For example, he may discover his hands and feet and spend hours practicing his skill at controlling a certain posture of his arm or leg. He'll be endlessly fascinated with the way light displays shadows on the wall of his bedroom. You might notice him studying the detail of cans on the grocery store shelf or listening to himself making short bursts of sounds, such as ah, uh, ehh.

Any of these things—and a whole lot more—signal a big change in your baby's mental development. This change will enable him to learn a new set of skills that he would have been incapable of learning at an earlier age, no matter how much help and encouragement you gave him. But just as in his previous developmental leap, adjusting to this new world will not come easily at first.

Wonder Week 12:
The World of Smooth Transitions

At around 11 or 12 weeks, your baby will enter yet another new world as he undergoes the third major developmental leap since his birth. You may recall that one of the significant physical developments that occurred at 8 weeks was your baby's ability to swipe and kick at objects with his arms and legs. These early flailing movements often looked comically puppetlike. At 12 weeks, this jerky action is about to change. Like Pinocchio, your baby is ready to change from a puppet into a real boy.

Of course, this transformation will not happen overnight, and when it does it will entail more than just physical movement, although that's usually what parents notice most. It will also affect your baby's ability to perceive with his other senses the way things change around him—such as a voice shifting from one register to another, the cat slinking across the floor, and the light in a room becoming dimmer as the sun dips behind the clouds. Your baby's world is becoming a more organized place as he discovers the constant, flowing changes around him.

Wonder Week 19:
The World of Events

The realization that our experience is split up into familiar events is something that we as adults take for granted. For example, if we see someone drop a rubber ball, we know that it will bounce back up and will probably continue to bounce several times. If someone jumps up into the air, we know that she is bound to come down. We recognize the initial movements of a golf swing and a tennis serve, and we know what follows. But to your baby, everything is new, and nothing is predictable.

After the last leap forward, your baby was able to perceive smooth transitions in sound, movement, light, taste, smell, and texture. But all of these transitions had to be simple. As soon as they became more complicated, he was no longer able to follow them.

At around 19 weeks (or between 18 and 20 weeks), his ability to understand the world around him becomes far more developed and a little more like our own. He will begin to experiment with events. The word "event" has a special meaning here and has nothing to do with special occasions. In fact, here it means a short, familiar sequence of smooth tran-

Wonder Week 26:
The World of Relationships

At about 26 weeks, your baby will start to show the signs of yet another significant leap in his development. If you watch closely, you will see him doing or attempting to do many new things. Whether or not he is crawling at this stage, he will have become significantly more mobile as he learns to coordinate the action of his arms and legs and the rest of his body. Building on his knowledge of events, he his now able to begin to understand the many kinds of relationships among the things that make up his world.

One of the most significant relationships that your baby can now perceive is the distance between one thing and another. We take this for granted as adults, but for a baby it is an alarming discovery, a very radical change in his world. The world is suddenly a very big place in which he is but a tiny, if very vocal, speck. Something he wants can be on a high shelf or outside the range of his crib, and he has no way of getting to it. His mother can walk away, even if only into the next room, and she might as well have gone to China if he can't get to her because he's stuck

Wonder Week 37:
The World of Categories

At about 37 (or between 36 and 40) weeks, you may notice your baby attempting to do new things. At this age, a baby's explorations can often seem very methodical. For example, you may notice your little tyke picking up specks from the floor and examining them studiously between his thumb and forefinger. Or a budding little chef may rearrange the food on his plate by testing the way a banana squashes or spinach squishes through tiny fingers. He will assume the most serious, absorbed expression while carrying out these investigations. In fact, that is just what they are—investigations that will help the little researcher begin to categorize his world.

Your baby is now able to recognize that certain objects, sensations, animals, and people belong together in groups or categories. For example, a banana looks, feels, and tastes different than spinach, but they are both food. These are important distinctions and similarities to sort out. The leap into the world of categories will affect every sense—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Your baby will learn more about other people and

Wonder Week 46:
The World of Sequences

Babies are natural mess makers. During the last leap in your baby's mental development, this talent probably seemed at its peak. You may have marveled at your baby's knack for destruction as he disassembled, tossed around, and squished everything in his path. If you are alert for newly developing skills in your baby, at around 46 weeks you may suddenly notice him doing things that are quite the opposite. He will begin, for the first time, to try to put things together.

Your baby is now ready to discover the world of sequences. From this age on, he can begin to realize that to reach many of his goals, he has to do things in a certain order to be successful. You may now see your baby looking first to see which things go together and how they go together before trying to put them in each other, pile them on top of each other, or piece them together. For instance, he may concentrate on aiming as well as he can before trying to pile one block on top of another. He may push a peg through a hole in a peg board only after he has compared the shape of the peg to the hole.

Wonder Week 55:
The World of Programs

Every child's first birthday is a significant occasion. The end of the first year means for many parents the beginning of the end of babyhood. Your little cherub is about to become a toddler. In many ways, of course, she is still a baby. She still has so much to learn about her world—which has become such an interesting place to explore. She can get around so much better now, though, and she has become adept at getting into everything that interests her.

Shortly after the first birthday, at around 55 weeks, your little one will have gone through another big change in her mental development and will be ready to explore the world of programs. This will make her seem even more like a little person with her own way of approaching the world. A watchful parent will begin to see the blossoming of a new understanding in the toddler's way of thinking.

The word "programs" is very abstract. Here's what it means in this context. In the past leap in development, your baby learned to deal with the notion of sequences—the fact that events follow one after another or

Postscript:
Countless Wonders

By now you know that every mom will, at some time, have to deal with a baby who is tearful, cranky, or fussy; a baby who is difficult to please; a baby who, in fact, just needs to touch base.

It's our hope that when you find yourself coping with behaviors like these from your baby, you will now understand that you are not alone. Every mother is facing problems like these. All mothers experience worries and irritations when their infants reach certain ages. All mothers forget—or would like to forget—these trying times as soon as possible; as soon as the difficult period is over, in fact. It's human nature to play down the misery we have to go through, once the dark clouds have parted.

Now that you understand that your child's difficult behaviors and your own anxieties and irritability are all part of a healthy and normal development as your infant struggles towards independence, you can feel more secure and confident. You know what you're doing.

Even without an instruction manual, you know that your baby will explore each "new world" in her own individual way. You know that the

Resources

The organizations listed below offer more information on childhood development than could be contained within the pages of any one book. They are all excellent resources to turn to for advice and support.

About Our Kids

This site offers research-based, practical information covering topics including sleep, thumbsucking, school, social development, mental health, and medications.

http://www.aboutourkids.org

Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com

These sites offer wide selections of books on childhood development.

www.amazon.com
www.bn.com

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
This organization offers information such as disobedience, defiance, tantrums, and the symptoms and treatment of oppositional-defiant disorder.

www.aacap.org
(202) 966-7300
3615 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20016-3007

Index

Underscored page references indicate boxed text.

A

Adapting to baby's responses, 31, 51, 64

Aggravation. See Anger, parental Aggression, avoiding, 140

Anger, parental
in week 8 developmental leap, 63-64
in week 12 developmental leap, 88-89
in week 37 developmental leap, 204-5
in week 46 developmental leap, 242-43
in week 55 developmental leap, 280-81

Annoyance. See Irritability, parental

Appearance of newborn, 32-33

Appetite, loss of
in week 8 developmental leap, 57
in week 12 developmental leap, 85