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.

I followed the wonder weeks app for both my children, found it to be accurate ... but for some reason joined some beyond wonder weeks Facebook group for when your child has finished wonder weeks and all the posters on there ever say is "ooh is there a leap at 14 months and 2 days??" To which they get loads of replies of yes oh it's hell, then "is there a leap at 14 months and three weeks" again yes .... no, no there's not because give way to the findings on that page there are leaps every couple of weeks until your kid is 20

These apps are ruining people's instincts. They are making parents dependant on them and more anxious in a lot of cases.
They are looking at an app to see if baby is tired/hungry/teething/whatever before the actual baby.

What surprised me about it was that it didn’t actually say anything. I’d read about some leap and it was just a mash up of words. I’d think - what the hell did it say again?! I only bought it as all the other mums were banging on about it and I had a fit of - oh god I’m a shit mum, I don’t know what I’m doing. Waste of money.

Oh god! Fucking leaps! FUCK OFF!

Such a load of balls, and YES just a mash of words with no real meaning.

I go to a mum / baby yoga class and the leap chat is intolerable and incomprehensible.

Yes, they are small babies, they are all developing, quickly, generally and all the time. Shut the fuck up!

Sorry. Just so happy to hear that other people think it’s utter drivel too.

I’ve just checked the app and it must have been updated, sadly the reference to the vomiting dog isn’t there (on mine anyway).

Looking back I think the main reason I got it was for me to try improve DS’s terrible sleep (another useless purchase alongside the Ewen the Dream Sheep, a mini hammock, a specia book which, when read, was meant to send the child to sleep, and a fairly pricey black-out blind for his window. None of it worked.)

Yanbu OP

I am so glad that I was never faced with such a pile of utter wank when my own dc were small.

It's an absolute pile of shite.

It’s a constant leap also known as just being babies

But don’t knock euan the dream sheep, he worked

I had this app and the first leap seemed spot on, so much that it made me dread the second. Nothing changed, DS didn't seem to go through it at all. I deleted the app after that, it's a pointless waste of time and way to make parents analyse everything (not sure for what gain!). Same as sleep regressions, I don't believe in those either but I remember stressing so much ahead of when the "4 month regression" was supposed to hit (it never did).

@ethelfleda calm down but yeah it is bollocks, obviously hit a nerve!

Oh god my sil is obsessed with this 🙄 def a smile and nod situation. Whatever happened to just watching your child and responding to where they are at at the time?

Woah such a coincidence, I downloaded this app today because DD is 7 weeks and won't be put down at all this week. Turns out she's nearing the end of her first leap!

It probably is a load of waffle but right now I'm comforted by the lies and convinced DD will be back to being a happy, chilled baby in a few days 

I agree OP, what a load of shite. Anything that sounds all evangelical annoys me.
The only book I have used for my babies is ‘Your Baby Week by Week’ by Simone Cave & Caroline Fertleman. Very sensible, straight forward, scientifically proven advice without any daft silliness.

OhEctoplasmOnIt

Yep. A nerve called PND.
And for the record, telling someone to calm down rarely works.
I jut get fucked off with people on mn thinking that being witty (not that you are!) is more important than being understanding.

DD2 has been a nightmare for sleep of late. "Must be a leap," I thought. Checked the app - we're on the sunshine. FML. It's nonsense to be honest. Babies don't come with pre-timetabled fussy periods.

If I blamed every sleepless night on a 'growth spurt' my DD2 should be about 6ft 4 by now.

I read the wonder weeks as was recommended it and I could kind of see the leaps but I said to my partner that it kind of felt horoscopy: I could only see it because I wanted to believe there was a predictability to the chaos. So glad you posted this, finally done proper research now (not just a quick google but through my university library) and totally agree it's all shady af and has no scientific background. When I was reading it, the way she conducted the study didn't seem conclusive at all due to the small number of study participants and it felt like she could have easily cherry picked the results she wanted. My other mum friends were reading it too and tbh I wanted to be part of the 'yeah I totally understand the psychology of babies' group.

By lucky chance I screenshotted the vomiting dog. Enjoy.

My baby is fussy at pretty much the times the wonder weeks app pinpoints- so been pretty accurate for us.

Where can I read about the research being shoddy and the sacking of the researcher?

The thing is, yes it probably is bollocks. Must most of the shit people say about raising babies is bollocks!!
Formula will help them sleep
Cry it out doesn’t cause any harm
You’ll spoil your baby by picking them up to much
Sushing and patting them on their back will somehow magically comfort them
They should be sleeping 7 - 7
They don’t need to be breastfed after a year

Etc etc etc... I could go on and on about the bollocks that people spout about child rearing. At least the Wonder weeks doesn’t have a negative effect on your baby. And if people find it comforting, why knock them??

For the record - I have never even talked about leaps to other parents. I stay off the topic of babies as much as possible because everyone else seems to think they know so much more about raising my baby than I do.

Does this go into adulthood too? Fuck knows where I’ve leapt.

Thank god! I thought I was the only one. My friends harp on about this leap and that leap but honestly, they're babies. They are growing teeth and learning new things all the time. Of course they are fussy sometimes ffs!

My kids are older so I’ve never heard of this before, but I experienced a similar thing when my dc were babies.

Back then “she-who-cannot-be-named” was the “in” thing, and I actively avoided a certain group of Mum friends who followed her books to the letter. I had a pretty “contented” baby without following any such manual.

there are leaps every couple of weeks until your kid is 20

Hooray - only 5 months to go

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonder_Weeks