Is there such a thing as brain growth spurts (and help my DS seems to be having one)

[mrsgboring]

Every so often through his life DS (now 2.9) has had periods of a few weeks where he's utterly unreasonable, madly full of energy does the oddest of things and I tear my hair out. I feel like it's the mental equivalent of a growth spurt, but is that remotely plausible? Would love to know if this is really the case or not.

The last week or so has been utter hell. We've been out twice a day, walked, run or swum to use up his energy, painted, playdoughed, pick your own, loooong outings, acres and acres and acres of books, Lego-ed to death, but he's still launching himself about, shouting and totally naughty, impetuous and borderline beserk the rest of the time. He's only calm whilst doing an activity and only if I give my whole focus - can't even get the dishwasher unpacked. He's also waking up even more often than usual (waking after 2 hours' sleep, often jabbering about something - I presume a dream). He is a crap sleeper generally but we had got him sleeping 7.30 till the wee small hours fairly reliably.

DH has taken him out on the bike for a little while at the moment, and it's making me realise how crazy it really has been this week. Please tell me this will ease soon. And any survival tips greatly appreciated.

No experience of boys here, but the dd's have had the odd moment themselves, Fish oil supplements have helped here when they're being a bit bonkers, that or increasing the oily fish intake,but they're not always so keen on that.

Interesting, Frizbe. DS gets a lot of fish (his favourite) but may try upping it.

I can't decide if he really does settle down after each "spurt" type episode or if he stays the same and I get better at coping with it.

But I'd really like to know what's behind these periods. Can anyone enlighten me as to whether a child's growing brain does go through rapid growth spurt type periods or not? Or if not that, then what is going on? DH and I finding it very wearing at the moment.

I don't see how, even if a growing child's brain went through 'growth spurts' that is would explain your DS's behavious quite frankly.

It's reasonably to assume that children's brains go through phases of increased activity, but it really wouldn't explain the behaviour.

I tihnk you should just put it down to normal toddlerhood, they do go through phases like this. You think he's bad now, just wait till he turns four

I know they do go through phases like this, I know it's normal. Was just wondering if there was a good or roughly plausible explanation of why.

My ds would definitely have 2 or 3 weeks of frustration, crying easily and just generally being miserable before a developmental spurt. He was the type of child that swallowed a dictionary over night, the friday before his 2nd birthday and was spouting new words all day. We had the same before he started commando crawling. He would go from not being able to do something one day to being an expert the next.

It was if he knew what he wanted to do but couldn't quite do it. He was still like that at 6 or 7 when his vocabulary would suddenly improve.
My DD was a more gradual developer and she never seemed to have the same frustrations

mrsboring there are quite a few reasons why they go through phases like this, and it is basically down to their development.

When a new developmental skill emerges, children have an intense desire to master it, hence they will often throw themselves into new activities with gusto, or run when they can barely walk etc.

Toddler's desires to do things also often preseeeds their ability to do it, soa few intense weeks of frustratingly tying to do something will often result in them mastering it.

Also, in the normal course of development some behaviours a child needs to developmentally advance to the next level are the very behaviours that we view as 'naughty', so again they are perfectly normal. He could be letting you know he is ready to develop to the next level and needs to to 'let out the line' so to speak and cut him some slack.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for this, Overmydeadbody. I've been trying to give him as much slack as I can - lots more messy and water play tolerated than I can usually bear, for example. I have been wondering if there was some obvious developmental step coming, and if so what it could be. I suppose it's quite likely that whatever it is is important but not that obviously identifiable. He is already quite a big talker etc. - maybe he's going to suddenly wean from the breast, sleep through the night and potty train [clueless optimist emoticon]

I remember going through a phase in my teenage where I felt like I could feel my brain and mental outlook changing, to the extent that I read the same book over again every few weeks and had a completely different take on it each time. I couldn't tell you what all those changes were though.

Finding all this fascinating, I have to say.