Child Growing-up
In the first 1.5 years of life, children experience rapid growth and development, physical, mental and emotional. This process takes place in waves and is characterized by the emergence of new skills of the child.
Each new ability is superimposed on the previous skill. For example, a baby learns first to roll over, then to crawl and sit, pull up and stand up at the support, and finally to walk. A growth spurt is also a leap in the development of the nervous system and brain. Rapid changes, the emergence of new abilities sometimes frighten a child. During such periods, they need special attention and help from their parents.
It is possible to identify the same patterns and the sequence of their development in all children, despite the fact that each child is unique. In total, there are 10 periods of mental leaps in children under 1.5 years of age: 8 of them occur before 12 months, the last 2 - up to 18 months.
Signs
Sometimes a growth crisis passes unnoticed, but sometimes it lasts longer and is quite obvious.
What signs will help you identify a mental leap:
Changes in diet
It is more difficult to feed a baby, sometimes it is not clear to the mother whether they are really hungry - the baby can refuse breast and bottle, but show signs of hunger. The baby wants to eat more often, but eats less during feeding. This behavior is typical when they try to calm down by eating.
Behavior
The child becomes more restless and moody. You will see that the baby does not want to get off from the hands and cries when you try to put them in the crib, or you will notice that the baby cries and does not calm down when they are usually calm and relaxed. This behavior is associated with the accumulation of overwork, since the baby spends a lot of energy during growth crises. Also, if the baby is irritated or naughty, they may be on the way to mastering a new skill.
Sleep
Before and during a mental leap, children are more sleepy. Night awakenings are more frequent and daytime dreams are getting shorter. If you had a regimen before, it can go bad. It will seem to you that it is no longer suitable for the child and you need to change the routine of sleeping and waking. But by the end of the mental leap, you will notice that the old regime is back to normal.
Please note - spikes in growth are sometimes confused with other problems. So, the baby is sleepy and moody due to the fact that they get sick. And hunger is a sign of mom's lack of milk.
New skill
The child learns one of the skills
- learns new sensations and learns his body
- begins to roll over
- assimilates on all fours and begins to crawl
- learns to sit down and get up from a sitting position
- tries to stand, holding on to the support and take the first steps
- begins to walk
- actively masters speech
Mental leaps calendar
- The first leap begins at the end of the first month of the baby's life, the peak falls on the 5th week. The baby begins to study the phenomena that occur around them. The senses develop, and the child feels the world much more clearly than before.
- The second growth crisis is a continuation of the first. Its surge occurs in the 8th week. The kid opens the world of patterns. The child realizes, for example, that they have two arms and two legs. And they spend hours practicing the new skill of controlling their position. The baby is fascinated by the shadows from the incident light. You may notice how the child listens to themselves by making different sounds. They also begin to show joy with their first smile.
- The third mental leap appears by 3 months. If before that the movements of the baby were awkward, now they have much better control over their body. Further development of the senses is also taking place. Now they notice the differences: they listen to voices, observe how the light is replaced by darkness, how everything moves around. The world is becoming more organized.
- The fourth mental leap occurs around week 19. The child understands that each event has a certain sequence of actions. They begin to notice smooth transitions in sounds, movements, lights, smells and textures.
- The fifth mental leap is about 26 weeks. You will see how the baby tries to do many new things for them. The child's coordination improves, they begin to understand the connection of things around. The main discovery at this age is the space around: there is a certain distance between people and objects. The world for the kid is becoming huge.
- The sixth crisis will clearly manifest itself at 37 weeks. During this period, you will notice that the baby is mastering new activities, constantly experimenting. The baby knows how to recognize certain objects, sensations, groups people and animals into categories. For example, they understand that a banana differs from an apple in shape, color and taste, but it is still food. Understanding the world of categories greatly affects your child's senses.
- The seventh mental leap will occur by week 46. The world of sequences will open to the kid. They will understand: in order to achieve their goal, it is necessary to act in a certain way. The child will learn how and in what sequence to put objects so that it is correct: a pyramid, cubes, etc.
- The eighth mental leap will happen about a year at 55 weeks. The baby will have a leap in mental development and will be ready to explore the world of programs. If before this little one understood the sequence of events that follow one after another, now they understand that this does not always happen. And they also realize that the result of an action sometimes depends on what happened now.
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The ninth leap is the first growth crisis after a year, the peak of which occurs at 14-15 months. The child has grown up and now they are able to change the programs that they have mastered before. The kid will experiment with them
- Meet other kids on the playground
- Imitate others
- Explore your emotions
- Think ahead
- Being aggressive to get what you want
- Roll up the first tantrums
- Understand the differences between "mine" and "yours"
- Learn to do something together
- Experiment with “yes” and ”no”
- The last tenth leap in development will take about 17 months. The baby develops the ability to understand "systems" and their differences: my mother is not like that boy's/girl’s mother, my scooter is not like that of my brother/sister. At this stage, they realize that they themselves decide how to behave. The baby develops a sense of compassion.
How to help your baby during a mental leap
- Create a physiological regimen to avoid overwork.
- Make your bedtime ritual longer. The baby needs more time to relax and fall asleep.
- Include more body contact in the ritual: carrying, hugging, kissing.
- Provide good rest - in a dream, the active development and growth of a small organism occurs.
- Train new skills while awake and praise each achievement.
- Pay more attention to your baby during the day, so that at night they do not replenish it with additional climbs for motion sickness and feeding.
- Check your baby for signs of hunger before giving the breast or bottle.
- And if the baby is full, use other methods of calming: re-swaddle, turn on white noise, whisper.