For some time now, I’ve observed that right around the time my oldest goes through a growth spurt, we start to see really wonky behavior: crankiness, sleeping more, eating like there’s no tomorrow, and the like.

Though I saw, and still see, this with him, being that he was our only child, it didn’t occur to me to look for this same tie-in with our newest arrivals. But, boy, something is definitely in the air! My youngest has shown signs of regressing to certain behaviors we’ve not seen since shortly after his arrival here. He’s throwing mild tantrums, and being whiny, clingy and verbally very cranky.

My daughter, who lost another tooth today, has also displayed some undesirable traits that appear to be growth-related. She, too, has been rude, cranky, out-of-sorts, and appears to be regressing in a few key developmental areas, as well.

Lest we chalk it up to the “new” kids being new to our home environment, my oldest has displayed very, very mild symptoms of this phenomenon as well.

So, what do you do about it? Turn a blind eye to the behavior since it’s tied to growth and therefore, “not their ‘fault’?” Correct them as you normally might? Somewhere in-between?

As I have often mentioned, my oldest has Type 1 diabetes. Since his behavior is sometimes tied to extremely high or extremely low blood sugar, I will have him test his blood sugar before undertaking any type of corrective action with him. It had not occurred to me to enact something similar with my youngest two, since I just put these pieces of the puzzle together.

There have been brilliant moments of sunshine, however. We all had a Valentine’s dinner out last night, and all three displayed beautiful manners, despite the crowded and extremely busy environment and the long wait to eat. My daughter even modeled etiquette for her brothers (and this is the girl we’ve been working with regarding rudeness!).

Is there a correlation between unusual or atypical behavior and growth spurts? Recalling those episodes, with the aid of hubby’s memory as well, I used a search engine to see if I could pull up anything to back up our anecdotal experiences. Lo, and behold! There were several examples, and I’ve referenced a couple of them below, just in case you encounter this phenomenon!

Resources:
About.com

Family Education