We’re 18 Months Old!

This week, Secrets of Baby Behavior turns 18 months old. Since our first post, our readership has grown to more than 6200 visitors per month in more than 100 countries. We wish to thank all of you who have taken the time to post questions or comments. While our readers already know this blog was created as a supportive place for parents and professionals to find research-based information about baby behavior, we thought we would take a moment to explain why we started the Secrets blog all those months ago.

As most of you know, the Secrets blog is written by a group of nutrition scientists (who are also moms) from the UC Davis Human Lactation Center. In 2006, we received a 3-year USDA WIC Special Projects Grant to fund an education project to help participants in the California WIC program understand more about normal infant behavior, including why babies cry and wake up at night, and how babies use cues to communicate with their caregivers. In our earlier studies, we had found that parents who misunderstood their infants’ behavior were likely to think their infants were constantly hungry. The intervention was successful in supporting mothers to follow WIC infant feeding guidelines. The project was so effective that we were asked to expand our trainings to WIC agencies all over California and into a few other states. During the trainings, we realized that many families lacked the information we were providing to WIC and we wondered how we could get this information out to others. Within a few weeks, www.secretsofbabybehavior.com was born. This blog is simply our way of sharing our research with as many families as possible. Thanks to all of our readers and to all of those who have shared the blog with others. Keep tuning in for more Secrets of Baby Behavior in the months ahead and please send us your questions!

Next time: Choosing the Right Gift for Baby