In this talk I will introduce an approach for understanding the behavior of differentials and their absolute and relative periods on smooth curves in the neighbourhood of a nodal curve. We will introduce a jump problem involving plumbing coordinates as parameters which we solve so that the dependance on the parameters is explicit. This approach was introduced in joint work with Grushevsky and Krichever to study the zero divisor of differentials with real periods under degeneration. An alternative proof for differentials appearing at the boundary of the IVC of strata of abelian differentials follows from our bounds in terms of plumbing parameters as shown in joint work with Hu.