Many babies seem less interested in food and drink at this time. Some seem to have no appetite and may dig in their heels and refuse some meals altogether. Others will only eat what they put into their mouths themselves. Others still are picky, spill things, and spit things out. Because of this, mealtimes may take longer than they used to.
If you have a fussy eater, she may also be unmanageable during meals, not wanting to eat when her food is there and wanting it as soon as it has been taken away. Or she may demand a lot of food one day and refuse to eat the next. Every variety is possible.
“My son refused my breast for 3 days. It was terrible. I felt like I was going to explode. Then, just when I decided it might be time to start cutting down on breastfeeding because it was getting to be that T-shirt time of year again, he decided he wanted to nurse all day long. So then I was afraid I might not have enough because he wasn’t eating anything else anymore. But it seems to be working out okay. So far, I haven’t heard him complain.”
Matt’s mom, 34th week
How This Leap May Affect You
Like the leaps that preceded it, the changes that your baby is going through will inevitably affect you. Here are some emotions you may encounter.
You May Feel Insecure
A fussy baby usually makes a mother worry. She wants to understand what is making her behave this way, and when she believes she has found a good explanation, it puts her mind at ease. At this age, most mothers decide it must be teething pain, but this may not be the case.
“My daughter’s top teeth are bothering her. She keeps wanting me to do things with her, such as go for walks or play with her.”
Eve’s mom, 34th week
(She did not cut her next tooth until the 42nd week. )
You May Be Exhausted
If you have a demanding little tyke who needs little sleep, you may feel extremely tired, especially toward the end of the fussy phase. Most mothers of demanding babies get very exhausted. They may think that they can’t go on much longer. Some also complain of headaches, backaches, and nausea.
“It makes me feel so discouraged at times when my little one stays up until midnight, even if she keeps playing happily. When she’s finally asleep, I completely collapse. I feel drained and unable to think straight. My husband gives me no support whatsoever. He’s even angry that I pay so much attention to her. His philosophy is ’just let her cry.’”
Nina’s mom, 37th week
“The days seem to linger on forever when my son’s cranky, cries, and sulks a lot.”
Bob’s mom, 35th week
You May Become Aggravated
Almost all mothers become increasingly irritated by their babies’ behavior during fussy periods. They become more and more annoyed by bad tempers, impatience, crying, whining, and constant demands for physical contact or attention. They are aggravated by constant clinging, the trouble they have to go through to change or dress their babies, and finicky eating habits.
“When my baby was having another one of her moods, not wanting anything and being terribly restless, I put her to bed. I am dog tired of it and terribly annoyed.”
Jenny’s mom, 37th week
“While I was getting my daughter dressed, her whining really got to me, and I put her down very roughly. I just couldn’t stand her whining and wriggling anymore. She’d been whimpering all day.”
Juliette’s mom, 35th week
“When my son became so unmanageable during changing, I put him on the floor in his room and left him there. That made him stop immediately. A few moments later, he came to get me, with a howl. Then he was willing to be a bit more cooperative.”
Kevin’s mom, 37th week
“This week, I got angry with my baby once. He’d been screaming so relentlessly that I suddenly shouted out angrily, ‘Now shut up!’ That frightened him out of his wits. First he looked at me with big, round eyes, then his head drooped, as if he was genuinely ashamed of his behavior. It was such a touching sight. After that, he became a lot calmer.”
Paul’s mom, 37th week
“I’ve decided to let my son breastfeed only twice a day. I’m fed up with his fickleness. One day, he wants it all, the next he wants nothing. At home, I don’t lull him to sleep at my breast anymore either. That seems to be working out fine. But when we’re at someone else’s house, I still do it.”
Matt’s mom, 37th week
You May Quarrel
Toward the end of every fussy period, most mothers who breastfeed consider stopping. The baby’s fickle behavior, sometimes wanting to nurse, sometimes not, irritates them. And the demanding fashion in which a little one continuously tries to get his way is another reason mothers think seriously about giving up breastfeeding.
“My son wants my breast whenever it suits him. And he wants it immediately. If it happens to be in some way inconvenient for me, he’ll throw a raging temper tantrum. I’m afraid those tantrums are starting to turn into a habit and that pretty soon he’ll try getting his way every single time by kicking and screaming. So I’m stopping right now, I think.”
Steven’s mom, 36th week
Quarrels can also develop when mothers and babies fail to negotiate the amount of physical contact and attention the little person wants and her mommy is willing to give.
“I keep getting more and more annoyed by my baby’s clinging and whining. When we go to visit friends, he’ll hardly let go of me. It makes me feel like just pushing him away from me, and sometimes I do. But that only makes him angrier at me.”
Kevin’s mom, 37th week
It’s just part of life. Having feelings of anger and frustration at times is not abnormal or dangerous, but acting on them is. It’s critical that you get help long before you lose control.
How Your Baby’s New Skills Emerge
When your baby is approximately 37 weeks, you will notice her becoming calmer. If you watch closely, you may see her trying or doing new things.
For example, you may see her handling her toys in a different way, enjoying new things, or behaving in a more concentrated and inquisitive way. Congratulations! Your baby is making another leap. She is beginning to explore the world of categories.
“I noticed a big change. My son’s toys are lying somewhere in a corner. They have been for some weeks now. I think that I need to supply him with more stimulating toys that will challenge him. But outside, he’s very lively because there’s plenty to see.”
Bob’s mom, 36th week
After the last leap, your baby started to understand relationships between different things he came across, both in the outside world and as they relate to his own body. He became more familiar with every aspect of his world. He discovered that he is the same kind of being as his mommy and that he could move in exactly the same way she does. He learned that other things can move as well, but that they move in very different ways from human beings, and that still other things cannot move at all on their own.
Once your baby acquires the ability to perceive and experiment with categories, he begins to understand that he can classify his world into groups. It will dawn on him that certain things are very much alike, that they look similar, or they make a similar sound, or they taste, smell, or feel the same. In short, he discovers that different things can share the same traits.
For instance, he can now discover the meaning of the word “horse.” He can learn that every horse falls into this category, whether it is brown, white, or spotted; whether the horse is out in a field, in a stable, in a photograph, in a painting, or in a picture book; whether it is a clay horse or a live horse. It is still a horse.
Naturally, this new understanding will not happen overnight. He must first get to know people, animals, and objects well. He has to realize that things must possess certain similarities in order to belong to a certain category. Therefore, he has to be able to spot these similarities, and this takes practice and time. When your baby acquires the ability to perceive categories, he will start experimenting with them
. He will start to study people, animals, and objects in a particular way. He will observe, compare, and arrange them according to similarities, and then place them in specific categories. Your baby’s comprehension of a category is the result of a lot of research that he conducts much as a real researcher would.
More Like One of Us
The use of different categories in our speech is indicative of our way of thinking. Now your baby will be able to start understanding and using this way of thinking as well. This will make it easier for you and your baby to understand one another from now on.
He observes, listens to, feels, tastes, and experiments with both similarities and differences. Your baby works hard at his investigations.
Later on, when your child starts talking, you will see that he has already discovered many of the categories we use and sometimes will have made up his own names for them. For instance: he may call a garage a “car house,” an apartment building a “block house,” or a fern a “feather plant.” The names he uses refer directly to whatever trait he found most characteristic.
As soon as your baby acquires the ability to divide his world into categories, he can start doing just that. He not only examines what makes something a horse, dog, or bear, but also what makes something big, small, heavy, light, round, soft, or sticky, as well as what makes something sad, happy, sweet, or naughty.
Games played during research with babies clearly show that from this age on, babies’ reactions take on a different quality. Some researchers believe that intelligence makes its first appearance at this age. At first look, it might seem that way, but it does not follow that babies never had any thoughts prior to this age. In fact, they have had their own way of thinking that perfectly suited each stage of their development. Unfortunately, these ways are lost to adults, and we can only imagine what they might be like. When the baby begins to classify the world in groups as we do, though, his way of thinking becomes more like an adult’s. Because he starts to think in the same way we do, we are able to understand him better.
This ability to perceive and experiment with categories affects everything a baby does. His way of experiencing things has changed, and it is now time to make sense of it.
Your Baby’s Choices: A Key to His Personality
A new world, full of possibilities, is open to your baby in the world of categories. Between the ages of 37 and 42 weeks, your baby will make his own selection from the wide array of things available for him to experiment with. He will choose whatever suits him best at this stage in his development and his interests. You may find him building on certain strong inclinations he showed previously, or he may launch out into new territory at this point. There’s a very big world out there for him to explore, and it’s important not to compare your baby too closely to other babies. Every baby is unique.
Watch your baby closely as you check off the skills he selects from the list “How My Baby Explores the New World of Categories” on page 226. You will learn where his interests lie and what makes him unique. Respect his choices, and help him explore the things that interest him.
Babies love anything new and it is important that you respond when you notice any new skills or interests. He will enjoy it if you share these new discoveries, and his learning will progress more quickly.
Brain Changes
Your baby’s brain waves will show dramatic changes again at approximately 8 months. In addition, the baby’s head circumference increases, and the glucose metabolism in the brain changes at this age
My Diary
How My Baby Explores the New World of Categories
Don’t be alarmed if many of these activities don’t show up until much later. What your baby is really learning in this world is the concept of categories, and once she has got a grasp of this through learning one skill, it will sooner or later be carried forward into other skills. The golden rule is “help, don’t push. ”
RECOGNIZING ANIMALS AND OBJECTS
Shows that she can recognize a category, such as animals, in pictures, toys, and real life
Shows that she distinguishes shapes
Shows that she thinks something is dirty, for instance by wrinkling her nose
Shows that she thinks something is fun or good by making a characteristic sound or movement
Understands names of animals or objects, such as toothbrush, sock, bread stick, cat, lamb, or duck. When you ask, “Where’s. . . ?” she will look for it. When you say, “Get your. . . “ she will sometimes get it
Repeats words after you now and then
Compares things seen directly and through a screen, for instance through a sieve, the mesh of a screen door, or glass
* * *
RECOGNIZING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE
Relates more to other people with sounds and gestures
Imitates other people more often; mimics what they do
Clearly wants to play games with other people more often
Calls family members. Each has his or her own sound
* * *
RECOGNIZING PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES
Recognizes people, even in unrelated situations
Makes silly faces at his mirror image and laughs
Looks at a thing or person in the room and then tries to find the same thing or person in the mirror
* * *
RECOGNIZING EMOTIONS
Becomes jealous for the first time when another child is receiving mother’s attention
Comforts a cuddly toy when dropped or thrown
Acts extra sweet when she wants something
Exaggerates her mood to let everyone know how she is feeling
Starts to cry when another child is crying
* * *
SWITCHING ROLES
Can initiate a game by himself
Plays peek-a-boo with a younger baby
Uses the bottle to feed mother
Asks mother to sing a song, then starts clapping his hands
Asks to play hide-and-seek by crawling behind something
Asks you to build blocks by handing you his blocks
* * *
OTHER CHANGES YOU NOTICE
Your baby needs time and help to come to understand why something does or does not fall into a certain category. You can help her with this by giving her the opportunity and the time to experiment and play in such a way that she will learn why something belongs to a certain category. You can encourage and console her when necessary and present her with new ideas.
Give your baby the opportunity to expand her understanding of categories. It makes no difference which categories she explores first. Once she gets the idea about one or two categories, it will become easier for her to apply this understanding to other categories later on. Some little ones will prefer to start out with recognizing objects, while others will begin with recognizing people. Let your baby be your guide. After all, it is impossible for her to learn everything at once.
Help Your Baby Explore the New World through Investigation
When your baby starts experimenting with categories, you will notice that she is actually busy examining an entire range of characteristics and comparing them. She is using relationships to work out what categories are about. By doing this, she will learn the most important characteristics of whatever she is examining. She will find out whether or not something bounces back, whether it is heavy or light, how it feels to the touch, and so on. She will examine something from all sides, hold it upside down or hold her head sideways, move it around quickly and slowly. This is the only way for her to find out: “This is a ball, that isn’t” or “This block is round, the other one isn’t.”
Some babies are particularly interested in different shapes, such as round, square, and notched shapes. They look at the shape and trace its perimeter with one little finger. Then they do the same with a different shape. They are comparing shapes, so to speak. With blocks, they usually pick out round ones first, which shows they are able to recognize them. If your baby seems fascina
ted by shapes, give her a set of blocks with all sorts of different shapes.
You may also see that your baby will find plenty of things in the house that have shapes that interest her. Have you ever noticed how your baby looks at things that are at a distance and attract her attention? She usually does this while moving her head from left to right. She does this to learn that even when she moves around, things stay the same size and shape. Find out what your baby likes to explore and how she wants to do it. Offer her the opportunities she needs.
“My son tries to catch the running water in the tub when the tap is on. Apparently he thinks it’s something he can grab. He’ll close his hand around the water, and then when he opens it there’s nothing in it. He finds this most peculiar. But he can keep it up for some time.”
Paul’s mom, 43rd week
Many babies like to examine the different components of things. By exploring an object this way, she will eventually find out how that object is assembled and to what category it belongs. If your baby is such a scientist, she may suck successively on different sides of an object, for instance, or press on the top, in the middle, and on the bottom of something. But her explorations can have surprising side-effects.
“My baby’s crazy about knobs. This week, he explored every nook and cranny on the vacuum cleaner. He touched the knobs as well. Accidentally, he pushed the right button and whoosh, the vacuum switched on. It scared the living daylights out of him.”
Bob’s mom, 38th week
Some babies love touching things with their hands to find out how they feel. This way they test for categories such as firmness, stickiness, roughness, warmth, slipperiness, and so on. Allow your baby to explore.
The Wonder Weeks Page 19
