Of course you love your baby. But did he also have fussy periods in which you wanted to superglue him behind the wall paper? Those in which your baby was cranky, crying and clingy one moment and sweeter than Hello Kitty a few minutes later?

This is very normal behavior.  As you likely figured out by now, life with a baby and toddler feels like a ride on a rollercoaster of emotions. Up and down, lucky and desperate, happy and mad. There is a scientific explanation for this, though. 

With each leap forward in mental development, your baby’s brain changes drastically. This new brain capacity gives him the opportunity to learn things he couldn’t learn before. The reason for this is that this brain change or, better said, leap in mental development, makes him perceive the world in a totally different way. It’s as if he entered a whole new world and everything is unknown to him. He sees things in a different way, hears things in a different way, and son on. Think about it this way, what would you do if your world changed so drastically and suddenly? You would cling to the one thing you knew and trusted in this new world: mommy! So, actually these fussy periods have a reason: your baby is developing in a healthy and good way!

3 Step Survival Guide for Mom: How to Get Through the Leaps…

1.  Know when the Wonder Weeks are and act accordingly!

Leaps in mental development are age-linked and happen at set, predictable times. Take the due date (not the date of birth: this is a way of correcting for your baby being born too early or too late), add the set ages of the mental leaps to that and put them in your agenda. Make sure you don’t plan major things during the fussy periods.  That allows you to have time for your baby, and it will help your baby to reduce the stress of making a leap … and that will help you!

Don’t want to calculate everything?  Subscrie to the free Wonder Weeks "leap alarm" (www.thewonderweeks.com), and you will get an email with a short description of the coming progress a week before your baby will actually make the leap, plus what you can do to help him/her through the transition.

2.  Know the new insight given to your baby by each new brain capacity

Know what new brain capacity your baby will have after making a leap.  If you know this, you know what signs to look for.  It will make you understand your baby and see the world through his eyes. This understanding will make you a better guide for your baby when he enters this "new world."

3.  Babies and toddlers want to learn.  With each leap, their brain is programmed to absorb new information.  Why? Not because they are already doing career planning, but because they know that learning the things their new brain capacity allows them to is the only way to make this new and scary world familiar again.  So, knowing as a parent what they can learn not only helps your child to develop, but also gives him the opportunity to get in a non-fussy and happy period again.

We’ll speak again soon,

Frans