So, lately, I’ve been having a conversation (with myself, my favorite person to converse with) about when I should stop measuring my daughter’s age in months and make the switch to years. Currently, she is 14 months old, and it still seems acceptable to measure her age this way, judging by the fact that no one looks at me like I’m a lunatic when I relay this information.
Now, I’m not disputing the value of measuring age in months. In the first year, infants grow so much and meet so many developmental milestones that it would be silly to lump them all together as “you know, less than a year” old. If I review my baby book a snapshot from the first year looks something like this:
5 Months – stood up
6 Months – stood up, punched Mom in the face, laughed
7 Months – stood up, punched Mom in the face, laughed, borrowed car without asking, beat me in poker
You get the idea, it’s been a busy year.
However, while I see the value of measuring in months, at some point it must stop, right?
“How old is your child?”
“46 months.”
Now watch as the person stares at you quizzically, while doing mental arithmetic, before replying, ”Oh, so she’s almost four?”
To which, I say, “yeah 46 months.”
So when is the magical cut off? Is it 24 months? Or 30 months? Or is it more of an amorphous thing, like when your baby sort of peaks on their monthly milestones and you know you better start measuring things in years to take some of the pressure off?
“Are you telling me you did nothing new in your 35th month? Nothing!?”
I suppose that, as with everything in parenting, we’ll figure it out as we go along. With any luck that will be sometime before my daughter’s 216 month birthday.
1 Month
6 Months
12 Months
And now I’m bawling. Waaaa!! Where does the time go?
Tags: baby, motherhood, parenting
