Documenting your Baby’s Milestones
Are you searching for ways to document your baby’s milestones? Whether you want to mark the occasion of your baby’s first smile or their first word, you need practical ways to document precious moments. Here are a few ideas.
JournalingKeeping a journal is a great way to tell the story of your baby’s first years. Inside these pages, you choose how detailed you want to be. Some people like to write daily, while others choose to do weekly or monthly entries. There are some journal keepers who prefer to draw instead of writing out their thoughts. Whatever you choose is perfectly fine, because parenthood is a personal journey. Journaling is also a great way to keep all your thoughts in one place. It allows you to refer back when you have questions about when your baby slept through the night for the first time, or when you bought your first swaddle transition product. The journaling process offers many opportunities to reflect on parenthood.
Memory JarsThe first few months of parenthood aren’t exactly calm. Once you and your baby come home from the hospital, life kicks into gear pretty fast, especially if you have other children in the house. Once you start transitioning back into everyday life, things get hectic. That’s what makes memory jars so wonderful as a way to record your baby’s milestones. All you need is a mason jar, slips of paper, and a pen or pencil. When your baby does something awesome, write down a sentence or even a word and date the paper. Put this paper in the memory jar and go change that dirty diaper.
Memory jars are great for the whole family. Siblings can even make their own memory jars and fill them with their own special memories of bonding with their new baby brother or sister. Years from now at weddings, graduations, and other events, these jars can be their own hybrid of comedy and nostalgia.
Even if you don’t want to admit it, your phone isn’t too far from you at any given time. One of the perks of having technology within arm’s reach is knowing that you can snap a picture of exciting moments right away. Save these special photos on your phone and, when you have the chance, upload your favorite shots to make a photobook or another keepsake. There’s no limit to the moments your phone can capture and there’s no time limit for uploading your photos. So, even if you don’t find that time until your child’s heading off to their first day of kindergarten, it’s no problem.
These tips should come in handy whether you're documenting your baby's first words or their most exciting sleep milestones. For babies just coming home for the first time, it's easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of feedings and diaper changes, but these memories are worth pausing to cherish. The best memory-keeping products make it easy and fun for new parents to remember the magic of these early years.
Are you looking for swaddle products to help your baby reach new sleep milestones? Check out Baby Merlin Company for great selections and prices today!
Also in Our Blog
What’s the Difference Between a Swaddle and a Sleepsack
Five Questions about Early Morning Wakeups for Baby
The team at NAPS helps you tackle the issue of early wakeups. *BONUS* NAPS is hosting a webinar on February 24th. Register here and use the extra-special code MAGICMERLIN and you can join the webinar FREE of charge!
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The sound of cheery calls of “MAAAAMAAAAA” from the next room may be lovely at 7am. At 4am, or 5 am, not so much. Your baby may be up and ready to start the day, but you probably aren’t.
Answering the questions below may help you get there.
- Is your nap schedule mucking up your baby’s overnight sleep?
This might seem like an obvious question, but your baby’s sleep needs will change fast in the first few years of their lives. A quick look at the average nap number and duration might give you an idea:
- For babies from 3-6 months old, it’s normal to take 3-4 hour-long naps per day.
- For babies 6-15 months old, expect 2 naps with 3-3.5 hours of total sleep.
- For one and two-year-olds, you should expect a single 2-hour nap.
Part of the reason you might be seeing earlier wakeups is that your baby has graduated from one nap cycle to the next.
- Does your baby have enough time between their last nap and their bedtime?
We call this an “awake window,” and it can make a big difference. It might seem strange that your baby went to bed fine the night before, and you’re seeing a response to nap scheduling in the pre-dawn hours, but if your kiddo’s sleep is disrupted at night, it will impact the morning.
- 3-6 months, at least 1.5-2 hours between final nap wakeup and bedtime.
- 6-12 months, at least 2.5-3.5 hours between final nap wakeup and bed.
- 12-18+ months, 3.5-4.5 hours between final nap wakeup and bed.
- Is the room staying dark after the sun comes up?
Black 0ut curtains can make a big difference here. Remember that our brains signal wakeup when the light changes. So if dawn is at 430am, and even a little bit of light comes into your baby’s room, their little brains will PING with wake up juice.
- Is your baby going to sleep too early or too late?
It might seem counter-intuitive, but a late bedtime can actually backfire on you. Overtired kids don’t sleep as well. If you made their bedtime later and it didn’t fix the problem, try an earlier bedtime and see if that helps. You might be surprised.
- How do you make it better?
Try to make one change at a time; just one. Stick with that change for 3-5 days to see if it impacts things. (One night is usually not enough to see substantial change.) Be as consistent as you can with the change you made. For instance, if you decide to increase the space between bedtime and final nap wakeup, make sure to stick to the wakeup time you planned.
If your baby is waking up and chirping happily to themselves, feel free to leave them there for a little while. Let them get used to being alone in the crib. If you can, try to delay the start of the day by 5-10 minutes each day. This can make a big impact.
Everything else aside, remember that this is a short time in your kid’s life; as they get older, their sleep will become more regular, and so will yours. Don’t let yourself get too discouraged. Things are hard now, and you’re doing a great job.
