Baby leaps are they a thing?

[FTM1333]

Basically that?
Do you believe in them? My friend swears by them but I've never followed she said I should download the wonder weeks app but I'm not sure. I have 6 month old.

They seemed to correlate with how my DD (PFB!) developed. I haven't bothered checking with DS 😆

I really think they are. They always fitted in perfectly with my child’s sleep regressions. They really made sense?

Personally, no. I think "leaps" are a load of boo hockey. However, some babies fit into these "leaps" and that helps parents to feel better about their baby's development and that there will be an end point if it's a challenging time.

Just wanna say love the friends reference lol I'm just so confused by it all was with her today and she was explaining it all and all I could think was that's just a baby

Wonder weeks app is a load of cobblers - one woman in our post-natal group used it, and used to gleefully announce when we were all due sleep regressions etc. Only about 1:4 of us actually had sleep regressions when the app said we were meant to.

There was also supposedly a sleep regression about one week in every two… I appreciate an app that just said “no changes this week! Keep going!” for 15 weeks probably wouldn’t sell, but it definitely seemed to be barrel-scraping some weeks. And the mum who had the app would clearly be trying to twist her baby napping a little more or less one day into a sleep regression to fit the app, rather than the app actually predicting anything.

I had it but it didn’t always correlate, the thing it IS good for though, is telling you all about where they are at developmentally at that age/stage and gives you advice and tips on how to nurture the new skills they are acquiring, some of which aren’t really obvious unless you know what you’re looking for, it gives a bit on insight into what they are going through and how their brains are developing, even if the times are slightly off.

my DD is 2.5 now and she DOES go through leaps, you can see she’ll sometimes have an unsettled week, then she’ll start saying a load of new words, or she’ll start doing something she’s never done before, it does seem to be a pattern!

the sleep regression side of it is total bumf though, I think that varies too much from child to child.

Didn't line up with my DS's development, no. Quite disappointed.

However, my SIL swore by it for her DD.

Haha thanks @FTM1333. Friends is an all time favourite of mine. You're right, it is just a baby and they all do stuff in their own sweet time. My SIL swore by it too and it got very annoying when she blamed everything on a "leap" when it was just my DN developing in her own time and/or our differing parenting styles. There is only 4 months between my DS and my DN and they couldn't be more different,

I found it a comforting excuse as to why my baby was screaming/unsettled/hard work/not sleeping etc amongst the million other reasons

I was obsessed by it with DD and would explain away every anomaly the way star sign people do – oh well I’m going by her due date not her birth date, except now I’ll go by her birth date for this leap so it matches, well there’s a window for this leap so she’s just late/early, of course sometimes they won’t do it. I need to shake a noisy thing at her! She can see in colour! I need to aid her development.

Threw it away before DS, a human potato, arrived. No idea what he’s up to; I put his occasional whinging down to teeth, tiredness or farts. I’m much calmer.

I do think they go through leaps and it can disrupt sleep etc. I also think that in the first couple of months, those leaps tend to happen at about the same time for most babies.

By six months there will be a greater spread in development so I wouldn't bother with the app (unless you want to read the info which is quite interesting).

But yes, IME you can expect disrupted sleep etc as they learn new skills like crawling or walking or have big leaps with their language. Just won't necessarily happen when an app says!

I don’t know what I believe but it’s a good app to use to understand the new developments coming up! And with developments come fussy phases and regressions due to learning new things!
really enjoy doing the games that they suggest as they do seem age appropriate!
has been spot on for my little one, or he’s a little ahead of schedule with most!

Wonder weeks app was spot on for my DS.

I think sometimes it correlates? I have some friends who still put down every shitty behaviour from their kids down to a developmental leap (they are 3 now) and it drives me mad!

DC1 was effected a lot by leaps but with DC2 you wouldn't know it at all. DC1 is also much more sensitive while DC2 is easy going and has a very happy temperament. Wonder weeks helped me to get through the difficult stages of DC1 first year as it made me realise that it wasn't something I was doing wrong and gave me hope that the bad phases would end. I've not followed it with DC2. It is quite interesting to see the development changes and understand how they change but like you basically said, it is just babies and you can experience those changes without forewarning!

Lol what did I miss in my first year of parenting? What are baby leaps?! Nobody ever mentioned this to me?!!

Wonder weeks is basically baby horoscopes that have been proven to not be accurate. It's not even developmentally accurate in terms of what order skills are acquired. Almost all the skills were either way too easy for the age stated or laughably complex.

It's the same as "sleep regressions". The amount of people whose babies have the X month sleep regression early or late makes it clear that they don't exist. Babies sleep well sometimes. They sleep badly sometimes. Yet even 2 years into parenting, I still see people in my Reddit due date group going "is an X month sleep regression a thing?!"

I think they are rubbish sorry! Babies develop so much in the first year, and at different paces. I did see issues with sleep sometimes matched to physical skills like crawling, walking and language bursts though.

This. Plus it's really depressing to look ahead and see all the bad sleep you'll supposedly have. Borrowing trouble.

I thought Wonder Weeks was a load of crap, and I still do.

It used to give me the same kind of eye-rolling giggles that reading horoscopes did.

All we ever hear is how all babies are different, how they all do things in their own time, how we should let them develop at their own pace and how we shouldn’t compare babies etc etc - yet somehow an App can dictate what stage every baby should be at on a week by week basis.

Absolutely ridiculous.