In its first two years of life, a baby develops rapidly. It goes through eight developmental thrusts during the first 14 months. The 19 week thrust is the longest and most intense.
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Growth Spurt In Babies Promotes Development
Growth spurts begin around the fifth week and end around the 56th week of life. Interestingly, pediatricians do not base the dating of the growth spurts on the actual date of birth. The date of birth calculated for the baby is decisive. Growth spurts and developmental spurts often coincide in the infant. Sometimes developmental spurts and growth spurts occur separately in the baby. When the baby undergoes a cognitive spurt can even be generalized for most.
It is similar with the basic skills that a growth spurt brings to light in babies. Last but not least, the little “hardships” that a growth spurt throws the baby and its parents into are almost always the same. This is because during the 8 growth spurts, babies are more difficult and fussy than usual. This is especially true during the 19 week thrust. This fourth episode, lasting up to six weeks, is the baby’s longest growth spurt to date. It is accompanied by restless nights and constant hunger. For some parents, this is the first time that their baby’s behavior shows a profound change. The helpless little creature already feels like a toddler. Because at the 19 weeks thrust the little person grows especially much. After this thrust, then often all the baby clothes are too small.
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Growth Spurt In Babies: What You Should Watch Out For
You will experience a total of eight developmental stages with your child. Each individual developmental spurt occurs first in the baby’s nervous system. It provides him with new, important opportunities. But it also influences your baby’s entire other behavior. Experiencing and learning something new is quite exhausting for the little being. Crying and laborious phases or poor sleep are therefore perfectly normal with every growth spurt of the baby.
Surely you think during a growth spurt that the baby is now particularly demanding. It “feels” like it only wants to be carried, is more sensitive and more anxious. However, you have to understand that the new world is upside down for your baby every time. It is normal for him to seek support.
By the way, the term baby growth spurt is a little misleading. It suggests that in the respective phase everything revolves around the physical growth of your baby. However, this is not true. It is true that the baby grows physically during a growth spurt. But it is mainly the development of the brain that is meant when we talk about a growth spurt in babies. So the more appropriate term is baby growth spurt.
From This You Can See That Your Child Is Going Through A Developmental Spurt:
Don’t be surprised if your baby changes. A growth spurt in babies is natural and therefore always a good sign.
You can recognize a developmental spurt in your child from this:
- The mood is bad, it whines a lot.
- The appetite is big, but very rarely small.
- The attachment grows, it often wants on the arm.
- The impatience is great.
- The sleeping rhythm varies and sometimes becomes really bad.
- The child becomes jumpy and also gets crying attacks.
Before The 19-week Push: Your Child Has Already Had These Growth Spurts
1. Growth spurt, around the 5th week. Your baby becomes more attentive and can perceive the environment better. He or she is awake more often at night, seeks your closeness and cries more.
2. Growth spurt, around the 8th week. Your baby’s senses are sharpened. He hears, sees, smells and tastes better now and tests his senses.
3. Growth spurt, around 12 weeks of life. When your baby is 12 weeks old, he becomes more active and interacts with you and his environment. He wants to be entertained, becomes more agile and curious.
4. Growth spurt: The 19 week spurt
The 19-week growth spurt is the most intense of all spurts. At this point, your baby may become a little more difficult. He sleeps much worse, wants to breastfeed almost every hour during the night, and cries a lot during the day. Therefore, the restful baby sleep often fails to materialize. In addition, your baby becomes moody, changing from happy to deeply sad within a short time. Your baby also gains a lot of weight in growth.
How Long Does The 19-week Stage Last?
The 19-week episode begins between the fourth and fifth month of life and lasts a total of about 5 to 6 weeks.
19-week Thrust: What Happens In Baby’s Head
When your baby was 12 weeks old, he or she already had a big growth spurt. The growth spurt in babies from 19 weeks of life is another much more powerful spurt. It has a lot to do with the fact that they are now learning to perceive events. This is something very special and requires a lot of energy. Your baby no longer just recognizes individual situations. It is able to combine them into a process and thus into an event.
Since your baby can now even recognize the sequence of different events, it also interacts with things for the first time. It is able to understand that a toy that disappears behind your back is not simply gone. So it starts to look after the toy. It waits attentively for it to reappear.
This growth spurt is a huge developmental step for the baby’s brain. That’s why your baby, like any other baby, wants to observe, see and experience as much as possible during and after the 19-week growth spurt. Often during this growth spurt, babies learn something completely new. What that is, however, depends on the stage of his development up to the 19-week push and your baby’s inner blueprint.
There are babies who develop quickly physically-motor skills at a 19 week push. After the 19-week push, they can then turn from their back to their stomach and back again.
Other babies are faster in language development at the 19 week push. After this developmental thrust, such babies can then already understand a few words or they suddenly babble sequences of sounds to themselves.
Many babies learn to reach for specific objects at the 19-week stage. They also ask for one or the other toy if it has disappeared under a blanket or fallen down in front of their eyes.
Important: No matter what your baby can or cannot do after the 19-week push. Do not worry about anything negative. Your baby child has learned a lot in this developmental spurt, as well as in the other spurts. But not everything is immediately visible from the outside.
Changing Mealtime Habits
The growth spurt brings drastic changes to the baby’s desire for food. During this phase, the baby often wants to go to the breast more often and at shorter intervals or asks for a bottle. If it then drinks, it is very easily distracted. Sometimes it even stops after only a short time and devotes itself to other things.
Important: Try to feed your child in a quiet place during this time. Because your baby has a growth spurt at the same time as the development spurt, its need for food is particularly high. If your baby is whining, he or she is probably really hungry.
The First Porridge
Now many parents start with complementary feeding. The milk meals that were usual up to the 19-week stage are now gradually replaced by porridge. You can also try this with your child. But: Take it slowly. If you have mainly breastfed your child in the past weeks of life, the breast is still the center of his life. It gives him warmth, closeness and comfort. If you abruptly deprive him of this by changing the feeding method, you will harm your baby more than you will help him with the new food.
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Attention: The Oral Phase Begins
What your 12-week baby was not yet able to do so well, your 19-week baby is now learning during this developmental spurt! He grabs things with his hands and wants to put them in his mouth.
The background: Your baby wants to examine everything it can grasp. This is not only possible with the sense of touch, your baby now learns. The shape of an object can also be felt well with the mouth, and of course it can also be tasted. That’s why this stage of baby’s development is called the oral phase. It occurs in every child without exception. Now your child rarely makes a mistake when he or she wants to touch something. He can reach out with just one hand for all the objects he finds interesting in his vicinity. In addition, he switches his toy purposefully and safely from one hand to the other.
Important: Pay close attention during this phase. Your baby also likes to put small parts in his mouth and can choke on them. Toxic things can also quickly enter your baby’s mouth during the oral phase. Therefore, utmost caution is required.