The Wonder Weeks answers the question, “Why is my baby cranky, clingy, and crying?” with helpful guidance. Maybe they’re experiencing a leap in brain development, after which new skills are mastered, discoveries are made, and perceptions evolve. Fussy behavior might signal that great progress is underway! Better yet, these phases occur on similar schedules for most babies—as explained and mapped out in this book—so parents can anticipate the “stormy weeks” that precede the “sunny weeks.” Based on decades of research, this fully revised sixth edition covers the first 20 months of a baby’s life and
The top 10 things to know and remember about a leap Fun games to support brain development Fill-in-the-blank checklists to help better understand personality and behavior traits Science-based explanations about sleep Fresh insight and recent commentary from new parents who’ve used The Wonder Weeks
Anchor moments to keep new parents sane, especially when they are exhausted and discouraged
With 2 million+ books sold, and 4 million+ downloads of the corresponding app, The Wonder Weeks has struck a chord. Join the phenomenon that has been embraced by celebrities, social media influencers, and parents worldwide.
SO REPETITIVE. You don't need to tell me the steps of the cycle in slightly different words in every chapter! And it's all so vague-- for a reason turns out, the science behind the whole book has been debunked more than once. Cut this sucker down to 50 pages of "milestones happen in this general order, here are some things you might notice and activities you can do to help" and it would be worth spending money on. As it is, I'd rather just use the CDC Milestones app for free 🤷♀️
When I first heard about wonder weeks, sunny weeks, and stormy weeks, my interest was piqued. I started reading this book right before my daughter's second leap and found the whole process fascinating. Instead of me focusing on the stress of a clingy, crying, cranky baby, I was instead focused on what skills she was developing and working hard to gain. As an adult, it's hard to realize the most fundamental skills, so this allowed me to connect more closely with my daughter as a teacher as she started to learn and explore more about her world.
I cannot recommend this book/workbook strongly enough. Great explanations, insights, rationales. Any parents or caregivers would benefit. My reading kept pace with my child's age/developmental level (i.e., each of the 10 sensorimotor stages of the first 1.5 years of life), and I've felt like a mind-reader or like I'm seeing into the future. The authors write explicitly through the lens of a 'facilitating parenting' approach, which aligns with my personal style and professional training.
Jackie's Unsolicited New Parent Starter Pack 1) This book 2) Baby Signing Time w/ Rachel 3) Clothing with pockets (yours, not theirs) 4) Diaper cream butt spatula 5) Silicone bibs
Repetitive and in need of a ruthless edit, the content fails to expand beyond what’s available in the free app by the same babe. Worse, despite the strong cloaking of science, the “research” is unsupported by anyone else in the field. It’s pseudoscience.
1.5 stars rounded up. This is a book I'm officially DNF-ing after trying very, very hard to read it. Oh, and one whole star is ONLY for the cute basic doodles of babies on every other page.
As a first time parent without my parents around me to help me make sense of this period, I was looking forward to this book. I realised though, that my baby follows exactly NONE of these patterns, and the "sunny" phases and "cloudy" phases were practically out of sync, if indeed that kind of pattern even existed in real life. I can see how it might be reassuring for a parent whose child follows the patterns listed on this book at least loosely. But for me, this book caused even more anxiety as I grappled with questions of "why is my baby not doing THIS at THIS time, and why is she having a fussy phase for the past several weeks when that's not supposed to happen?"
Also, what started annoying me is that the "signs" for the onset of each "fussy phase" are nebulous at best, and easily Interchangeable with normal baby behaviour on ANY given day! It's maddening to try to figure it out!
If this book works for you, that's great, but it certainly isn't a one size fits all!
Ultimately, I decided to give up, in the interest of my mental peace. I've decided to just let my baby lead the way, and not try to second guess or predict her moods. So far, this seems to be much better for my mental peace (as much as you can attempt mental peace with a baby around) than trying to wrap my head around this book.
Very wordy without having much to say. On every page I wished the writers just got to the point. Maybe publisher/author needed an American editor? It reads like they had to fill a page or word count quota. Just throwing words onto a page. There’s so many unnecessary, repetitive sentences and very few key insights in a paragraph. The amount of actual intel that’s in this book, could have fit a simple brochure or booklet. And so much is exposition, “what you’re about to learn in this book” and “now that you’ve learned [repeats previous pages in different words],” over and over again.
I read the 5th edition. I found this to be my go-to guide for my firstborn. Very insightful and I used it as a tool over the first 17 months. So I liked being able to read one leap/chapter at a time as it was applicable to my family. Helped me make sense of all of the development, leaps, skills and her little world. Highly recommend!
A very helpful guide to understand our baby brain development and how to behave with our fussy LO in his wonder weeks. After reading this book, we become less stressed. Now we just wait for the new leap and we deal with it without any stress or frustrations. I highly recommend this book.
Only read the first few chapters. It didn't provide any profound insight. Babies go through stages of growing, mentally and physically. Just love them and be patient.
There may come a time in the early days of parenting when you look at your spouse and say, “Jesus, the baby is really on one this week.” They seem super clingy and fussy, and won’t stop fighting everything you try to do. God forbid you happen to be traveling when all this goes down. The usual tricks that would’ve always worked suddenly don’t anymore, and you’re left wondering what kind of hurricane is brewing inside your innocent child.
We experienced this phenomenon multiple times over the last eighteen months. We’d find ourselves days into a sleepless stretch of screeching and sound machines before some intuition told me to check the app that goes with this book.
And every.
Single.
Time.
We’d discover that we were in the thick of the next development leap.
If I had read those last couple paragraphs on the back cover of this book, I would’ve called them out as just a clever story to get me to buy it. And yet, I lived it. The timing was always perfect, the descriptions of her behavior as if they were being written down in real time. Every time I saw the app and realized how on point it was, I felt like I was living in a simulation. This book is the real deal.
It’s no easy feat going from fetus to toddler. The brain and body make the transition over a series of ‘leaps’, basically ten hurdles each kid must conquer in order to process the world around them. You can tell when one of these leaps is upon you because your child will suddenly appear to go three steps backward for a few weeks. And then, as if it was all a dream, they wake up one day looking and sounding like a totally different, capable, upgraded little human. It will rock your world and make you realize that life is marching forward a lot faster than you want it to.
I’m in disbelief that this book that I started at the beginning of this parenting journey has finally run it’s course. This is an excellent book for sympathizing with your child’s development struggles. The book can get repetitive, but you can easily skim to the important parts. It also comes with a bunch of recommendations for guiding your child through each of the rough patches they have no choice but to go through. And thankfully, a few tips for keeping your own sanity along the way.
Because trust me — there will be days you’ll want all the help you can get.
Cool “what to expect” guide to baby development during the first year and half of life. Redundant but only as a result of its design, to be able to be read intermittently as your baby grows. Offers fun, phase-specific games and activities that baby might enjoy, skills to look for, etc. Obviously the “leap” calendar is not a one-size-fits-all and there is chatter of this entire book being debunked, but it does what it needs to. A simple look at the toddler brain.
This is definitely a worthwhile read, to help understand and prepare for mental growth spurts (called leaps in the book) that your baby will have. It's also helpful to know what skills the baby might possibly develop after each leap.
Even if my kiddo hasn’t always shown his developmental leaps at exactly the times this book predicted, it’s still interesting to read about how his mind works.
This book along with the accompanying app truly enriched the way I experienced my baby’s mental and physical development. I highly recommend it to all new mothers and fathers.
It’s usually impossible to figure out if baby is crying because of gas, teething, developmental leap, sleep regression etc. but this book helps to at least explain what baby is experiencing and why it would be so scary for them. But ultimately still have not found a manual for raising a baby.
Knyga, kuri labiausiai padeda pirmaisiais 18 vaiko menesiu. Ji yra apie raidos suolius, apie tai, kas vyksta jo smegenyse ir kodel kartais ateina sunkus menesis - man asmeniskai visi etapai labai sutapo. Net gaila, kad baigesi:) knyga skaityti kartu su appsu.
Yes, I know this book has been disproven several times in several ways. Despite its scientific inaccuracy, I think it's still really really helpful.
As a first-time parent, you don't know what to expect. Should my kid be able to roll over by 1 month? 5 months? Should they be able to react to sound at this point? Be attracted to bright colors? Talk?? If you think you'll be constantly worrying about these kinds of things, then this book is great because it helps you set your own mental expectations. It also helps remind you of things like "your child probably doesn't understand objects exist yet". Personally, it helped me relax and kept me from overthinking and overworrying my child's development.
Can it actually tell you which weeks your child will be fussy? No. But it's really comforting when it happens to line up and you can say "oh, this'll just be for a week, then we can relax". It helps reassure you that you're not doing anything wrong, it's just the kid trying to make sense of the world in new ways. And, again, also great for giving you perspective and giving you a very rough roadmap of when to expect different developmental milestones.
Would not recommend. Lots of repeating and blurbs from random people that aren’t cited. Some even say “-instagram”. If you wanted to read a book that cited Reddit basically and tried to cite patterns, then this is the book for you. I’m honestly not sure what I got out of this besides the overarching picture that babies go through semi-predictable developmental hurtles that affect their mood. But I feel like intuitively even the most absent parent could see this. Idk. I could be wrong. This book was a waste of time and I also didn’t like the fact that it was like a workbook but it wasn’t creative. It asked you to check off things at the end of the chapter, but why?? If the goal was to check off almost every thing don’t make it a work book, just write the fucking book like normal. /rant
Honestly even if this has been debunked I'd recommend it to any parents because: - It's nice to "blame" fussy phases on just a mental growth spurt and accept they'll pass in X weeks with your support - Developmentally appropriate activity suggestions - Testimonials that remind you this is all normal - The tone of the book is really supportive and empowering and non-judgemental
They lost me with comments such as ‘they can start manipulating or taking advantage of you’ (referring to your baby). The timelines of leaps and what is developing is helpful as you can put support measures in place for yourself and your baby to make these times of need slightly easier. I also found the book repetitive and felt much of it could have been summarised.
This is a great book for better understanding what changes your baby is going through and it helps you understand how she's able to view the world, at different stages in her growth. However, it could've easily been a 50-pages book instead of 400 pages :)
Eh, nice to know that baby develops, but after leap 2-3 it just felt pretty useless. I will use this as a general developmental reference, but man, I really, really dislike the format of this book; so much repeat content to just fill up the pages.
Wasn’t patient enough to finish this one - so vague and repetitive. Disappointed overall. One star goes to the cute doodles of babies every few pages lol.
I think this book is well written and has a lot of really great information in your baby’s development. I loved the calendar showing when they will likely be fussy and when they will have a good week. It was for the most part pretty accurate on that. I would often feel like my baby was being really fussy for a few days and sure enough it was time for another developmental leap. The concept of this book was really good and it gave me ideas of how to help my baby develop and how to encourage that. It also did a good job of giving parents ideas of how to take care of themselves. That is something I think we miss a lot in our society now and our children will be better taken care of when we take care of ourselves too. What I did not like about this book was giving my child certain expectations. When I would read something in the book, I would expect that he would start doing that thing. Sometimes he did but sometimes he didn’t. It gave me anxiety and I wasn’t sure when he was going to hit those milestones. I wish the book was written in a way emphasized the things it talks about may or may not happen. Every baby manifests a leap so differently. I think it provides the reader with expectations that may or may not happen. Instead of elevating a caretaker’s stress, it can easily add to it.
Overall, I have this book 3.5/5 stars. I enjoyed learning more about my baby’s development and feeling validated when he was fussy during a “stormy week.” I just feel that it can cause more stress than it’s worth. I would recommend it to new parent with the warning to not put these expectations on your child and if it adds to your stress than to stop reading it. Other than that I enjoyed it!!
When one of our kids goes through a prolonged period of crankiness, clinginess, or fussiness my wife and I always say to each other “Oh, it’s a leap.” Somehow that phrase together with its immediate follow-up -- “Yeah, their brain is growing” -- helps frustration walls crumble and empathy walls build back up. How can you be upset with someone whose brain is growing? (Doesn’t always work / everyone is human, etc.) But we got the phrase from an app called Wonder Weeks that my wife downloaded years ago. The app helpfully / eerily seemed to predict – almost to the exact day – when our little ones would be going through periods of ‘independence regression’. How is that possible? Well, fifty years ago Frans and Hetty finished up their PhDs in educational psychology, physical anthropology, and behavioral biology and went to hang out with Jane Goodall in Tanzania. After a couple years they had so much data on baby chimps and their mothers that they began researching if the same ‘leaps’ they observed occurred in humans. Spoiler Alert: They did! The book (and app) chronicles each leap – the behavior that happens during and after – and what types of activities may be fun or helpful to try during the period. Originally came out in Dutch in 1992 and is now in its sixth edition in English. One watchout: I disagree with the phrase “stress-free” in the subtitle. The risk of the book is that it brings out the “gold star on their homework” side of parents and sort of trades in some deep intuitive wisdom for some checklisty could dos and should dos. To be taken as an aid more than anything.
I can't express how wonderful this book is. I was told of this book before my daughter's arrival into this wonderful world and began reading it right after her birth.
First of all - this book is a god sent. It's broken down into leaps, aka baby phases. I usually read one leap ahead just to prep myself for what is about to come next. Each leap explains a child's milestone and their development progress. It also describes their behavior. It makes it so much easier to understand what the baby is going thru. As a first-time mom - this book is such a wonderful guide. Every time it lets me know that I am not the only one in this situation, all babies go thru this stage, I am actually a good mom. It gives me a better connection with my daughter. Each chapter, also known as a leap, includes exercises and games that are appropriate to play with the babies at the assigned age that helps with their development, and are fun activities for mommy/daughter time.
I have read a few books, and a million mommy blogs and searched for what to expect, or baby advice. This book is basically all the books and blogs combined into a few pages. That's another beauty of this book. The chapter for each leap/phase is 15-20 pages long. Us, new parents, do not have time to read and this book is like a flashcard for new parents: short, straight to the point with examples.
I received this as my very first pregnancy gift from a friend who was told by mom friends of hers that it's the one book you should have about parenting. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it's necessary.
I actually liked the quotes most because I enjoy hearing stories about other babies and comparing them to our boy. Contrast makes things visible, so it can help to get to know your little one a little better.
The examples in the checklist were also somewhat interesting for that reason and helped notice a couple of things we might not have otherwise. Though paying good attention to babies and children is probably better. I just didn't know any babies before my own, but it would have been better. Learning to pay attention and discern is better too.
It's good to be aware that babies have phases of fussiness for good reasons (some more than others), but maybe the details aren't so important. Also, if you consider growth spurts, teething, sickness and personalities, it all becomes a big blur. We did really recognize the moments when the fussy phases of the leaps began and they usually matched to the day.
Babies need love, security and support. Be surprised by all the skills they master and enjoy life unfolding and growing.
Before I had a baby, I didn't know how to read this book. I was reading ahead into the very first leaps and found the format of the book to be extremely confusing.
But after I'd had a baby, I could suddenly understand this book perfectly. I found it to be extremely accurate and very comforting. For those weeks when your baby stops sleeping, starts clinging, has extraordinary mood swings, cries for no reason at all, and doesn't seem like herself, this book helps explain why it's happening and that, yes, it WILL stop. These are very important messages for a new mother to hear! And the leaps - from the baby's mental and physical development, to new games that can help engage them in exploring their new skills, to checklists of behavior that is associated with each leap - are explained very well in a way that helps you really understand what your baby is experiencing and how to help them process these often overwhelming changes.
This book is a must-read for any interested or concerned or frustrated new parent.