To be fucked off with 'leaps' for babies?

[harper30]

Christ alive I've just been for lunch with a load of mum friends, we all have babies under the age of one, and I swear if I hear the word 'leap' again one more time I will throttle somebody.
It's all based on this book/app called 'The Wonder Weeks' and it was recommended to me by so many people when I first had my baby. But the author was literally sacked from their university and I'm pretty sure had their doctorate stripped from them for issues with the research done for the book. So I didn't bloody bother buying it.
I understand that it's reassuring to know that when your child is being mental and won't sleep it's a 'leap' so that helps to explain it and you know they're upset for a reason.
But fuck me.
'Oh little Timmy is about to go into leap four, heaven help us all!'
'Yes little Debbie just finished leap 5, it was a week early and it was a shocker!'
'Ooooh we're due for little Jimmy's leap 5 now, we've only got a few days before it starts! Better get some sleep now!'

I never never point out that stuff about the authors to people because I don't want to shit on anything. But I had to let it out somewhere.

Does anyone else ever encounter this around parents of young children?
Are you guilty of bumming the leaps as hard as my mum friends??

And breathe. Thank you for reading.

Literally never heard of this before

One of the many reasons I left a FB group of mam’s I met on here.
Brilliantly supportive in lots of ways but very intense in other ways and I’m a much calmer and more relaxed parent without it all.

I had the wonder weeks app on my phone when DD1 was a baby. Am currently 36wks pregnant with DC2 and I doubt I’ll bother downloading it again.

Oh I have found my people!! I fucking HATE the leap shit so much!! What a crock of absolute shit!! My sil used to do my head in "oh he's due a leap next week now, that won't be fun" wtf??? It's next week, why are you planning for it to be bad aaahhhh

YANBU.

It’s complete BS, as you say, and based on terrible research.

I’ve met loads of mums who obsess over it though. A good time for smile and nod, smile and nod.

I went away with one of these mums (and a load of other people). I had no idea what she was talking about. We entered a leap when we were away and apparently everything changed. I didn’t see it. And it definitely felt like confirmation bias.

I hear you. My mum friends ALL go on and on about leaps as if they were a real actual thing. I had a couple of kids before the Wonder Weeks though, and it was an awful lot less stressful than obsessing over “leaps”. But I don’t say it, because who am I to piss on their chips?!

Yep, I think it's rubbish

That app was recommended by our hospital when I left with newborn DS!! The fact that it was recommended by professionals is why I used it! Also, anything which helps you to feel like a shitty period isn't going to last forever is wonderful in my opinion, even if it is load of BS!!

What is a leap and why are they all obsessed with it?

I downloaded the app and found it very accurate in terms of my DS behaviour with the leap periods and stages.

yes so much crap gets spouted about babies and children's behaviour / development. It's because parents want something to blame or some kind of supposed "scientific" explanation. I literally had to bite my lip till it bled every time friends of mine went on about testosterone surges in their 4 year old boys!!!

Yeah I’m usually very sceptical of things like this, but honestly dd followed it to a tee. It made me less stressed knowing I could mentally prepare for her being difficult, and not questioning my own parenting abilities all the time!

When both DD's were new born, everyone was going on about this at the baby groups. I got the app, looked at it, deleted it. I didn't get the obsession with it! Babies do not develop at the same rate. You can't timetable it. Relax and enjoy your baby! And there are umpteen reasons they don't sleep or cry a lot.

Yanbu. Absolute load of shit.

Oh thank goodness for that I'm so glad some other people think it's balls!
I definitely just smile and nod/bite my lip, like someone said, I don't want to piss on anyone's chips.
I 100% get that it generally seems accurate for most babies and it's nice to know an end will come to a shitty period, but surely we all know that anyway? You don't need a discredited Dutch academic to tell you that?

@IsTheRainEverComingBack - a leap, I believe, is a period of development where a baby is growing or learning something new and therefore they can be fussier/not sleep etc. I think that's the gist.
As others call it, common sense.

My DS isn't even in a leap right now and is managing to be a little bugger. Love him though.
When he was going through a "sunny" period after a leap we were at a photoshoot (GP present!) trust me, there was nothi g sunny about it. We bought nothing that day.

For those asking...
www.thewonderweeks.com/the-mental-leaps-and-wonder-weeks/

I never buy into this sort of thing but the HV showed me a crude version of the Wonder Weeks when I had my first and to my utter disbelief, DD followed it to the letter and it was helpful as a first time Mum, to know that I didn’t need to call a priest to perform an exorcism.

Never talked about it like your ‘friends’ do though. That’s just cringe.

It doesn’t work for my second DD. She’s a grumpy bugger all the time.

Yanbu, it's a load of rubbish. The leaps can be early or late and happen so frequently that sleep trouble etc at any stage can easily be blamed on a 'leap'. It didn't take much googling to see it had been discredited and yet people still buy into it

Oh thank god you think it’s crap op. I have secretly thought this for a long time but everyone else is always blathering on about it.

It's not a magic bullet or anything but my daughter so far has done what the app said she would be doing roughly when it said she would be. I do agree that she didn't seem particularly fussy when the app predicted that she would be but the timetabling of her development has been broadly right.

I’ve got twins and they are difficult at different weeks so I can confirm it is a load of tosh.

I think the idea of a leap is a handy thing to hang onto when your baby is going through a tricky stage. But the idea that they happen on a predictable schedule is nonsense.

Never heard of it either. I must be hanging out with the right people.