I have done several cute things for Grant: monthly growth photos, Dear Grant monthly letter, a paper baby book, weekly photos on his giraffe play mat, and a calendar of his weekly/monthly milestones. It sounds like a lot and when I talk to other moms about it I get this response “that’s great but you know with the next ones it will get less and less.” Case in point, my baby sister Lauren-I found her baby book once and used those cute milestone stickers on my toys since mom wasn’t using them. (Sorry Lauren but I have a vague memory of having stickers that say bath time, crawling, and visits doctor all over my Lisa Frank sticker album.)
During last week’s work trip I brought my son’s baby book on the air plane and filled it out in flight. I had to pull dates from so many different places: Facebook, emails, dates on photos, dr. notes, calendars, text messages, and more. I am labeling all these milestones and corresponding them to his weekly photo album I am printing online. (I am trying to do yearly family photo books so those poor photos don’t just sit there.)
There has got to be a better way to do this! I started a journal for the first couple months three weeks but that went downhill and I self confess that there may only be 10 days between his ten and eleven month growth photos. I started to record the dates on my iPad calendar and then found out it was all gone when the thing updated! I am sure there is a better way to do this but now that I have played catch up, I made this….
Week | Date | Month | End date | Month | Month # | Major milestones | ||||||
Grant's age in weeks and months during his first year | BORN | 17 | July | 23 | July | 0 | | |||||
1 | 24 | July | 30 | July | 0 | | ||||||
2 | 31 | July | 6 | August | 0 | Rolls over front to back | ||||||
3 | 7 | August | 13 | August | 0 | | ||||||
4 | 14 | August | 20 | August | 0 | | ||||||
5 | 21 | August | 27 | August | 1 | | ||||||
6 | 28 | August | 3 | September | 1 | Out of state stay-SD | ||||||
7 | 4 | September | 10 | September | 1 | Smiles on camera | ||||||
8 | 11 | September | 17 | September | 1 | | ||||||
9 | 18 | September | 24 | September | 2 | | ||||||
10 | 25 | September | 1 | October | 2 | | ||||||
11 | 2 | October | 8 | October | 2 | | ||||||
12 | 9 | October | 15 | October | 2 | | ||||||
Month | Start | End | 13 | 16 | October | 22 | October | 3 | | |||
14 | 23 | October | 29 | October | 3 | Started daycare | ||||||
1 | 17th | July | 16th | August | 15 | 30 | October | 5 | November | 3 | Halloween | |
2 | 17th | August | 16th | September | 16 | 6 | November | 12 | November | 3 | Eats rice cereal | |
3 | 17th | September | 16th | October | 17 | 13 | November | 19 | November | 4 | | |
4 | 17th | October | 16th | November | 18 | 20 | November | 26 | November | 4 | Thanksgiving | |
5 | 17th | November | 16th | December | 19 | 27 | November | 3 | December | 4 | | |
6 | 17th | December | 16th | January | 20 | 4 | December | 10 | December | 4 | | |
7 | 17th | January | 16th | February | 21 | 11 | December | 17 | December | 4 | | |
8 | 17th | February | 16th | March | 22 | 18 | December | 24 | December | 5 | | |
9 | 17th | March | 16th | April | 23 | 25 | December | 31 | December | 5 | Christmas | |
10 | 17th | April | 16th | May | 24 | 1 | January | 7 | January | 5 | New Years | |
11 | 17th | May | 16th | June | 25 | 8 | January | 14 | January | 5 | Sitting Up | |
12 | 17th | June | 16th | July | 26 | 15 | January | 21 | January | 6 | Eats baby food | |
27 | 22 | January | 28 | January | 6 | | ||||||
28 | 29 | January | 4 | February | 6 | | ||||||
29 | 5 | February | 11 | February | 6 | | ||||||
30 | 12 | February | 18 | February | 6 | | ||||||
31 | 19 | February | 25 | February | 7 | Pulls up to standing | ||||||
32 | 26 | February | 4 | March | 7 | | ||||||
33 | 5 | March | 11 | March | 7 | Tries meat | ||||||
34 | 12 | March | 18 | March | 8 | St. Patrick's Day | ||||||
35 | 19 | March | 25 | March | 8 | Starts to crawl | ||||||
36 | 26 | March | 1 | April | 8 | Crawling all over | ||||||
37 | 2 | April | 8 | April | 8 | | ||||||
38 | 9 | April | 15 | April | 8 | | ||||||
39 | 16 | April | 22 | April | 9 | Standing | ||||||
40 | 23 | April | 29 | April | 9 | | ||||||
41 | 30 | April | 6 | May | 9 | | ||||||
42 | 7 | May | 13 | May | 9 | | ||||||
43 | 14 | May | 20 | May | 10 | Walking | ||||||
44 | 21 | May | 27 | May | 10 | Camping trip | ||||||
45 | 28 | May | 3 | June | 10 | Memorial Day | ||||||
46 | 4 | June | 10 | June | 10 | Solid food | ||||||
47 | 11 | June | 17 | June | 11 | Running | ||||||
48 | 18 | June | 24 | June | 11 | No more bottle | ||||||
49 | 25 | June | 1 | July | 11 | | ||||||
50 | 2 | July | 8 | July | 11 | 4th of July/Cows milk | ||||||
51 | 9 | July | 15 | July | 11 | First birthday party | ||||||
52 | 16 | July | July | 12 | Turn ONE! | |||||||
This is a simple excel workbook (prints on one piece of paper) that you can write notes on via computer or by hand. I quickly put some of the big milestones on here and have a couple more to add but I feel that I will have a plan to help me get the dates “in the record book.” Also should I need to this again in the future I will be set. Anyone wanting the excel version let me know and I can email it out so with minor adjustments you can tailor it to your little one. It would be neat to see the differences in your children’s first year side by side too!
There are so many different ways to capture this stuff but my lesson learned was getting it to one place. There are apps for it but if you switch app platforms it may not transfer. I had an extra wall calendar that I wrote things on but most likely their first year will require two separate calendars. The baby book works good if you can remember to pull it out when that tooth came in but I didn’t. I hope this helps someone out there like me.
Please feel free to share any tips on record keeping for your little ones!
