Wonder Weeks

I’m obsessed with reading about Wonder Weeks and trying to understand what mental leaps my little one might be going through. When she’s fussy I need to know the reason, hence the slight obsession, and it’s almost like a consolation – oh, she’s entered leap 5, yeah, that’s a tough one, that’s why she’s waking up more frequently again, or the grey period, which in a way was worse than the previous leap, made her crankier again.

We’re in the sunny phase now after the grey period and I can definitely see a change, which is why I believe she’s spot on in terms of the mental leaps. She goes down happily for naps most of the time, wakes up smiling and isn’t fighting bedtime, while during the grey period I resorted to rocking her fully to sleep because as soon as I laid her down she’d start crying. She’s even sleeping through the night! She did get very close before (~10 hours) but now I’ve experienced waking up realising she hasn’t needed a feed! Long may it last as I’m sure soon enough there will be something else happening to her that will affect her sleep.

It’s not all about sleep though. She’s a lot more mobile – attempting to crawl and rolling over properly. She’s also become more vocal, using more vowels and consonants almost each day, it’s really fascinating. Her fine motor skills are quite impressive, sometimes I just sit back and watch her play, how she picks up her toys, pinches them, hands them from one to another, drops or bangs them together. She also holds her own bottle. When I feed her she always grabs the spoon out of my hand and wants to eat by herself, which she obviously still cannot do.

Back to the leaps though… this website summarises them really well – Baby Sleep Site – and I must say, I’m dreading the leap 6 and 8/9/10 sleep regression. Our little one wasn’t too bad during the 4 month sleep regression, I remember her being a bit harder to settle and waking up before midnight. I still fed her about twice a night and sometimes she would stay awake for a few hours and nothing would settle her but feeding back to sleep but overall I think we came out of it pretty well. She started napping better, which means she somehow learnt to link the sleep cycles and I enjoyed a bit more time for myself during the day.

But this next sleep regression sounds like a nightmare! 😦 Baby’s sleep may be seriously disrupted, thanks to all his new-found mobility. But baby may also begin to experiment with cause and effect at sleep times – ‘If I cry, what will mom do?’  I will try to come back to this post when things go to pot and remind myself – it’s just a phase. I hope that will just keep me going! 😉