Being a recent father of a 6-month old I wondered at what age people typically stop referring to their childs age in months.
Personally I think after he reaches a year old I will refer to his age in 1/2 year increments. “He’s 1 and a half, he’s two, he’s two and a half.” If it’s somewhere inbetween I’ll be saying “He’s almost 2 and a half”,“He’s a little over 2”,“He just turned 1” etc.
I think it’s silly when I read on these baby boards with mothers stating “well, my 37 month old did such-and-such.” Annoying to have to figure okay, so she really means he just turned 3.
2 1/2. My youngest child (of four) is about to turn three, and in the cases of all her siblings, we kind of segued from “28 months” to “two and a half” or the ever-popular “she’ll be three in August.”
For fathers I’ve known, myself included, the age was never stated in months, only years, and after about 5 this is computed by calculating from the model year of your car. Let’s see, my car is now 3 so Junior must be 6.
I’d say for me it was after he turned 2. Then he was “just over two,” “almost 2½”, 2½, etc. I asked another mom how old her little boy was and she said 38 mos. I was like, “Huh? So he’s 3 then?”
For me it was after my daughter turned 1, and I’m into the halfs like you mentioned (she’s almost 2 1/2). I’m not sure when the half years stop. For my son I haven’t progressed out of the weeks (he’ll be 3 weeks old tomorrow) I’ve yet to hear someone express a child over 2 years of age in months, I think I’d be put off if someone talked to me about their 42-month old.
I think after the eighteenth month, it starts sounding like a bad attempt by the parent to preserve the kid’s infant status. Never understood this myself. On the other hand, I guess it could also be an attempt to make the baby sound older than it is since higher numbers sound older … ?
I like to use triple negatives with folks who do this to return the favor of superfluous verbiage:
“How are you feeling today?”
“Well I wouldn’t say I’m not unwell!”
“Uh …”
On second thought, people like that usually can’t be bothered to ask me about myself because they’re too busy shoving photos of their twenty-nine-and-a-half-month-old in my face and telling me how adorable they are. Just a courteous observation for all you proud parents to keep in mind when you find yourself getting ready to launch into a gushfest about how wonderful your one-hundred-eighteen-week-old sweetie pie is!
I don’t have kids, but I have 5 nieces and nephews, and my dad’s a retired pediatrician. Reading through this thread, it hit me that the last round of baby shots are given at 18 months. So it makes sense to move on to years after that.
-Lil
We were heavily into the “How Your Child Develops” type parenting guides, and they all had separate monthly chapters up to age 2, so we counted by months.
After that it was “let’s see, we bought the bigger car when she was six months old, so…”
My middle son turned 2 yesterday, so I’m done with the months. Now he’s just 2, and in 6 months, he’ll be 2 ½.
My little one, however, is six and a half months old. He’s my last, so yes, I’m hanging on to his babyhood a bit more than I did with the others.
With my first, I could have told you how many days old he was, for the first year or so. Thank goodness I got over that. Now he’s simply five. (Actually almost 5 ½, now that I think about it.)
I’ve yet to hear someone express a child over 2 years of age in months, I think I’d be put off if someone talked to me about their 42-month old.