Once you are past the blissful, sometimes difficult baby months, the pre-toddler phase begins. After your baby’s first birthday, your child is officially no longer a baby, but a pre-toddler. During this period, your child will learn things at a dizzying speed. A lot of fun things, but kids also learn how to cope with conflicts, how to nag and manipulate. How do you cope with those “antics” of your pre-toddler?
All leaps start with a fussy phase marked by the three Cs (Crying, Clinginess and Crankiness), but the leaps in your child’s second year are particularly difficult. In the first six months of their baby’s life, parents are usually a bit annoyed during the fussy phases, but they know that their baby can’t help it, and the only thing they as parents can do about it is to comfort their baby.
In the second half of the first year, parents are usually more irritated and will constantly try to distract their baby during those phases. Babies will usually fall for those tricks. But a child in his/her second year of life will not fall for it at all, and this can lead to periods of conflict and sometimes even outright quarrels. This phase may be even more difficult than puberty. Hence, this is sometimes also referred to as toddler puberty, but in fact, this behavior already starts in at pre-toddler stage.
