61 Week Old Baby: Your Baby's Development and Your Recovery This Week

Your toddler's hands are getting seriously capable this week.

At around 13–14 months, your toddler can grip a toy firmly, pick up a dropped object without losing balance, and carry something small in each hand while walking. Everything gets explored by touch, sight, smell, sound and taste, which means everything ends up in the mouth at some point.

• Play with the five senses: a bowl of dry rice to run fingers through (with close supervision), textured books, a smell-and-sniff walk in the garden.
• Let your toddler help "cook", stirring a bowl of dough is fascinating at this age.

• Climbing curiosity is kicking in. Never leave your toddler alone on a bed, sofa or chair, a roll-off is the most common toddler fall. Keep chairs pushed in under the table so they can't climb up. If they love stairs, a gate at the top AND bottom, and climbing practice only with you right behind them.

• Bathroom and bedroom doors that lock from inside are a classic toddler trap. Remove the inside lock or keep a spare key accessible, a toddler who shuts themselves in and can't open the door is a panic nobody needs.

• Vomiting, unusual sleepiness, a swelling that keeps growing, or pupils that look uneven, head to the emergency room. Most bumps just need a cuddle and a cold cloth.

• Smooth marble or kota floors get slippery, a small rug at the play area, soft slippers indoors, and watch for the threshold strip between rooms. Open balconies are the biggest fall risk in Indian flats, grilles right up to ceiling height, always.

Those busy little hands reaching for everything are really reaching to understand the world you have made safe for them. Watching baby development up close like this is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, and you are the steady centre of all of it.

Around 14–15 months. Many Indian mums are still breastfeeding at 14 months, which is healthy and normal.

The WHO recommends breastfeeding up to 2 years alongside solids. Your timeline is whatever works for both of you.

If you are continuing to breastfeed

• Pumping while at work
• 1–2 sessions, depending on shift length
• A bottle of expressed milk from the caregiver during your work hours
• Direct nursing morning and evening when you're together

If you are starting to wean

• Gradual is gentler, drop one feed every 1–2 weeks
• Daytime feeds tend to drop first; bedtime and morning feeds last
• Engorgement hacks, express small amounts, cold cabbage compress, no full emptying
• Mood dip is real during weaning (oxytocin drops); it usually settles in 2–3 weeks

Indian galactagogues vs. anti-galactagogues

• Boost milk: methi, ajwain, jeera, fennel, garlic, oats, gond ladoo Slow milk (when weaning): peppermint, sage, cabbage compresses

Body during weaning

• Periods often regularise. Breast shape may change again (volume drops). Hair fall may bump up briefly. Hormones take 2–3 months to fully settle.

Eating well

• Whether you're nursing or weaning, real food matters. Three meals + two snacks. Iron, calcium, B12, Vit D, the four common Indian-mum gaps.

Worth flagging

• Painful red patch on the breast plus fever, mastitis. Call your gynae or lactation consultant the same day. Engorgement that won't settle in 48 hours, sudden blood in milk, or a lump that doesn't shift after feeding, also worth a same-week visit.

A small note on social pressure

• Well-meaning relatives often have strong opinions on when to wean. The right time is a private decision between you, your toddler, and your gynae. "We will wean when we are ready" closes most conversations.

However long your feeding story runs, it has been written with your body and your heart, and only you get to decide its ending. Treat this decision as an act of mother self care, not a test to pass. Whatever you choose, your closeness with your child does not depend on it.