I'm not big on parenting books. I initially owned a Gina Ford book as well as the Baby Whisperer. Both were donated to the local library pretty early on. My instinct, along with genuine advice from friends who have been there, has never let me down.
However when Emily was four or five months old, someone mentioned The Wonder Weeks to me. This isn't a book about how to bring up a child. It merely outlines the typical mental development of a child (based on 30 years of research) and helps you understand why, at certain times, children are unpredictably clingy, grumpy, and all those other fine qualities mothers dread waking up to.
The book spans the first 20 months of a child's life and Emily is nearing the end of that. We are currently going through the final wonder week. Thus my bloggy silence.
I could sit here and moan (oh boy could I moan) about the nightmare child that Emily has suddenly turned into. Not to mention that our blissful full night's sleep has turned into patchy "catch an hour of sleep if you can" and has both David and myself feeling like homicidal zombies by morning.
Today - day two of Nightmare Emily this time round - it occurred to me that it might be a wonder week, so I checked my book. Sure enough, outlined in almost eery detail, was a description of Emily, and how a child's behaviour will probably change around week 74 of their life.
It didn't make today any easier. I shouted at Emily, I shut my ears to the endless moaning, I may even have turned off the baby monitor for the latter few hours of last night. I'm not proud of any of it, but she wasn't going to come to any harm and you do what you have to to cope.
But reading about the mental development that's ongoing at the moment helps. It helps to look out for new abilities and sometimes even helps patience last a little bit longer. Not much, but it does.
She's just gone to bed, and despite the pretty awful day, it ended with cuddles and - finally - a laugh or two from her. Most beautiful sound I heard all day.
It'll be an early night for me and David tonight!
(This post is not sponsored, but if you'd like to buy a copy of the book it'd be really nice if you used the link I provided *wink*)
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i totally agree with you re: parenting books - i owned both of those, along with a couple of others and they remain gathering dust on the shelves!! i might have to check the wonder weeks out though... you're not the first to have mentioned it! x
ReplyDeleteI couldn't recommend it more. Someone else mentioned it since I wrote this post, and also spoke very highly of it. Don't leave it too long though, you want to get as much use out of it before Oliver hits 20 months! (which will happen before you know it) ;) xx
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