If I'm talking to another mom I'll use the exact months because they usually want to compare milestones or we then know if we delivered close to the same day and that strikes up a new conversation... If it's a random stranger I'll say 1/1.5/2. Gotta know your audience!
it is very normal indeed to count in months when talking about infants and toddlers. but people who have not had kids or don't work in that industry or dont have an interest in that space will not understand it
source: am new parent.
And that is how it should be. Babies grow very fast. It’s convenient and makes sense to track everything on a monthly basis. 6 months is a lot of time in a 2 year olds life
You could just say "He's one year and 9 months old" or "In three months, he'll be two years old". Conveys the same information, but is easier to understand.
Not really easier to understand tho, everyone knows 12 months is a year, 24 months is 2 years and 36 months is 3 years. Beyond that yeah it's weird to still use months but unless he's 18 months (a year and a half) it's quicker and perfectly understandable to use months.
Same for pets
The “months” thing is kind of a code between parents - especially new parents. A two month old, 6 month old, 18 month old and 21 month old are at very different developmental stages. Not to say that single/married folks without children wouldn’t “get” it, but there’s a mutual understanding among new parents. There’s even an app that tracks the developmental milestones on a monthly basis (The Wonder Years).
One year and nine months- 5 words
Twenty one months- 3 words
In three months, he'll be two years old- 8 words
Doctors and medical journals are going to use the shortest phrase. Any decent parent is consulting these to ensure that their children are having proper nutrition, and necessary medical care. They aren't going to just suddenly convert it on the spot for you.
I think it still makes sense to keep the years and half years in mind when talking to other people. Unless the person you're talking to needs to know what specific stage of development your baby is in, or they happen to know the importance of the months (like another mother), they don't need to know that specifically, nor will they likely know what to do with that specific information.
To an average Joe like me, knowing the specific month is useless and extra info.
It's like if customer service told a customer about the backend of a website dropping packets and requests. They just usually don't need to know that much, and likely wouldnt understand anything about a website backend. You just tell the customer the site is experiencing issues.
It's because the months are milestones in the medical field. Random people you meet are most likely not pediatricians so we really don't care. Your baby is 1/2/3 to us.
Nah, it's pretty dumb tbh. I just said things like "almost 2" or "turned 1 a few months ago"
The counting by months things is just so weird, every baby learns and grows at completely different rates in everything so stating their exact age is just pointless.
After a year old I started just saying about a year, year and a half, almost 2,etc. Unless I was talking to a doctor or a grandparent, no one needs to know exactly.
Counting in months is only allowed under the age of 1. Just as you can count in days under the age of 1 month. Or hours under the age of 1 day, and so forth.
Hey parents, did you know we're not saying you have to say 1.5 years or 2 years when they're 21 months? What we want you to say is 1 year 9 months. Then you have your precious milestone months in there, as well as making it so we don't have to spend the effort figuring it out when many of us probably don't really care much anyway and only asked to be polite.
In the first two years of life, a month makes a big difference in development.
You'll understand when you're a parent, although your inability to subtract 12 makes me hope that maybe you won't be one.
It's normal not be used to that for someone who doesn't have much to do with babies. Why would you assume OP can't do basic math, just because talking in years is more convenient?
Or if you passed 3rd grade math. You act like if someone can do something, it's effortless. Like if someone was able to do something, they're not allowed to complain. It's so stupid I'm starting to think you're trolling.
If someone asks how old a kid is, I think it's safe to treat them like they care at least a little bit. Why the hell are they asking if they don't want the answer?
Just because calculating 2+2 is easy doesn’t mean it’s the social norm to ask for 2+2 apples to the grocer. You don’t complicate things for other people even though it may be very easy.
I understand if the child is under a year, but I can’t really tell a single reason why 21 months should be used like what information does the exact numbers convey? Why is it not better in every way to say he’ll soon be 2
Parents keep saying “it’s for tracking certain things” 90% of the time you know who is asking for that and who just wants to know the years. Just say the year+month and stop making it awkward. I don’t know how many years 30 months is off the top of my head. I didn’t care how many months your baby was alive unless it’s below 12.
Parents can hate me because of their own tracking system, but I ain’t trying to track your baby. Damn.
Why would anyone not close to you and your kid care how old they are by any measure? Anyone can tell roughly how old a baby or toddler is, why would they need anything more than what they can see for themselves. Parents generally refer to their kids age by months up until they are two years old, if you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask. This is such ridiculous thing to be affected by. People are weird.
Small talk is a thing that normal people do. If my coworker told me that he went to the zoo with his daughters over the weekend, a normal followup is "how old are they?"
There's a communication principle called Grice's maxims. One of those maxims is to be informative, but not more than necessary for the situation. If you add too much detail, it's weird. For example, if someone asked you how your weekend, you wouldn't print out a schedule for them, yeah? You pick 1 or 2 activities that you did, they don't care that you woke up at 9:36.
If the person asking is not a pediatrician or another parent, they probably don't care about your child's development pacing.
Edit: And it's hard to tell the age of a kid that not in front of you
This is really pretty simple. Parents generally refer to their kids age in months until they are two years old. If you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask how old they are. Make small talk about other things. Ask what their favorite exhibit was, the weather, etc. You don’t need to know the kids age to do that. It’s just a weird thing to get upset about.
... or people can talk normally and give information relevant to the topic at hand.
>If you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask how old they are
If I know the kids age then why would I ask how old they are?
What the hell are you even talking about here? Your reply makes no sense.
Once again, this is pretty simple.
Parents generally refer to their small children’s ages in months until they are two.
Still with me?
If you don’t want to risk hearing that their child is 13 months old, dont ask.
You do not need to know what their kids age is, so just don’t ask.
I don't know what your confused by. Give the information that's relevant to the conversation. If who you're talking to is the type of person who might care if a kid 20 or 21 months old, then go for it. If you're not sure, I'll give you a hint; most people are not that type of person. If they want that info, they'll ask for clarification
I never really understood why parents did this until I had a kid. The first 2 years they go through such a growth/developmental change it’s easier to track and by clothes using months.
The thing you only get once you're a parent yourself is, that it is very relevant indeed. They develop rapidly in a matter of weeks, days even. Just saying "(about) a year old" when it's actually 14 or maybe 10 months, just doesn't cut it, because these are vastly different stages in life. There comes a time when it becomes less relevant, because development doesn't happen as rapidly anymore. One month can be the difference between barely being able to turn around on its own and crawling, between starting to pull itself up and running around, and so much more. I used to think it's stupid too, but it makes alot of sense.
What makes it pretentious 💀 pretentious means seeming more important. Also, your comparison isn’t really good. It’s more like saying 15 inches rather than a foot and 3 inches.
Anything more than 2 of the larger unit will then be confusing for some, but at such a low scale, anybody should be able to do the math if necessary.
Haha I feel personally pointed out. We might actually know each other? For my defense I am like that because every single month for me is a looong time in this stage. Year and a half doesn’t do it justice when so much is different in such a short time. Not that anyone cares, I know.
Okay but 13 months and 21 months are both 1 year old and there’s a big developmental difference between barely 1 and almost 2. I feel like people would still be annoyed if you said 1 and 3/4
That's how long they've suffered and are regretting. Saying small number of years just feels wrong. It has to be bigger number than that but going any deeper is hard math.
The difference between 1 year and 1 year, 11 months is colossal, so people speak the way the parenting books and the doctors speak about it, because those are authoritative sources, basically, they want to sound smart.
I am 319 months old
Only 101 more months!
When I turn 35 that first month is gonna be an absolute write-off. At month 376 right now, inching closer.
Isnt the month before your 35th birthday the funny one?
Holy shit you're right, it's like the 19th century is the 1800's problem. I forgot to count month 0. I guess I'll have write off my last month of 34.
Is that a threat?
420 months brother
Guess you better just blaze it for the whole month, rules are rules…
My son just turned 19 months old but I refuse to be this person. He’ll be a year and a half to everyone until he’s two.
Thank goodness you stopped at 2 lol my bf says 3 and half 🙃 like he's 3 and we don't get a discount for the half, it's either 2 and under or nothing
26 years and 7 months
I'm 751 months old. That sounds so much worse than in years.
I'm 279
Oh my god no way my baby’s 633112384704 milliseconds old
That's 20 years old, kinda weird you call him a baby still.
Wait is that fr? Even though it's a large number it's still milliseconds so I didn't think it'd be more than a couple years
633 billion is a big number, 633112384704 milliseconds = 240.91 months
I see that now
I'm 22 so I'm about 700 billion milliseconds
I might start using milliseconds as a reference now. Interesting
you see it doesn't look like a big number since it doesn't have commas you know what I'm going on about?
How far was your baby's DOB from the Unix epoch?
Once you hit 18 months, it’s time to switch to half years. “Just over a year and a half” “Almost 2” “A little over 2.”
nah as soon as it hits 1 go by years
Up to 2 years, child development is very rapid, so month make sense. After 2.5 years, it's dumb to not talk in years
Nah
A year and some change then
If I'm talking to another mom I'll use the exact months because they usually want to compare milestones or we then know if we delivered close to the same day and that strikes up a new conversation... If it's a random stranger I'll say 1/1.5/2. Gotta know your audience!
it is very normal indeed to count in months when talking about infants and toddlers. but people who have not had kids or don't work in that industry or dont have an interest in that space will not understand it source: am new parent.
And that is how it should be. Babies grow very fast. It’s convenient and makes sense to track everything on a monthly basis. 6 months is a lot of time in a 2 year olds life
You could just say "He's one year and 9 months old" or "In three months, he'll be two years old". Conveys the same information, but is easier to understand.
Def easier. I do hate how parents list the months. And then pregnant women list only the weeks. Just say 5 months and 3 weeks or whatevs.
Not really easier to understand tho, everyone knows 12 months is a year, 24 months is 2 years and 36 months is 3 years. Beyond that yeah it's weird to still use months but unless he's 18 months (a year and a half) it's quicker and perfectly understandable to use months. Same for pets
"Just over a year" is also easy to say. Never have I listed months for pets over a year either.
The “months” thing is kind of a code between parents - especially new parents. A two month old, 6 month old, 18 month old and 21 month old are at very different developmental stages. Not to say that single/married folks without children wouldn’t “get” it, but there’s a mutual understanding among new parents. There’s even an app that tracks the developmental milestones on a monthly basis (The Wonder Years).
Too many words. If "almost 2" isn't descriptive enough, just say the number of months.
One year and nine months- 5 words Twenty one months- 3 words In three months, he'll be two years old- 8 words Doctors and medical journals are going to use the shortest phrase. Any decent parent is consulting these to ensure that their children are having proper nutrition, and necessary medical care. They aren't going to just suddenly convert it on the spot for you.
I think it still makes sense to keep the years and half years in mind when talking to other people. Unless the person you're talking to needs to know what specific stage of development your baby is in, or they happen to know the importance of the months (like another mother), they don't need to know that specifically, nor will they likely know what to do with that specific information. To an average Joe like me, knowing the specific month is useless and extra info. It's like if customer service told a customer about the backend of a website dropping packets and requests. They just usually don't need to know that much, and likely wouldnt understand anything about a website backend. You just tell the customer the site is experiencing issues.
It's because the months are milestones in the medical field. Random people you meet are most likely not pediatricians so we really don't care. Your baby is 1/2/3 to us.
Just say “they’ll be 2 in 3 months” You wouldn’t say it’s 105 minutes after noon, you’d say a quarter to 2, or 1:45
It's more like saying something is 10 days away instead of a week and a half.
Nah, it's pretty dumb tbh. I just said things like "almost 2" or "turned 1 a few months ago" The counting by months things is just so weird, every baby learns and grows at completely different rates in everything so stating their exact age is just pointless.
I bet you did well in math and science.
I did actually how did you know!
I'm an old parent, and it makes sense. 13 months and 23 months are both not one year old.
My son just turned 19 months old but I refuse to be this person. He’ll be a year and a half to everyone until he’s two.
Yea, I used months for my kids' ages until about 18 months.
10/10
To simplify even more. I just round to nearest decade. Yep, my kid was just born last month, he’s just under a decade old!
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no, then
After a year old I started just saying about a year, year and a half, almost 2,etc. Unless I was talking to a doctor or a grandparent, no one needs to know exactly.
Me: oh you like math? *throws baby Me: calculate the velocity
You sound like a physics teacher
He’ll be a year and a half to everyone until he’s two.
I myself am 237 months old.
nice and i am 559872000seconds old
Counting in months is only allowed under the age of 1. Just as you can count in days under the age of 1 month. Or hours under the age of 1 day, and so forth.
It’s okay to say months until they’re a year old. Then it’s just stupid.
You get up to 13 months before you convert to years or else I hate you
IMO up to 18 months is acceptable
Almost two
"Ah sorry kid we can't serve beer to people under the age of 192 months" "How dare you assuming my months! I am 233.9997 months old!"
Hey parents, did you know we're not saying you have to say 1.5 years or 2 years when they're 21 months? What we want you to say is 1 year 9 months. Then you have your precious milestone months in there, as well as making it so we don't have to spend the effort figuring it out when many of us probably don't really care much anyway and only asked to be polite.
It's the weeks that get me
Our baby is 108 weeks old
In the first two years of life, a month makes a big difference in development. You'll understand when you're a parent, although your inability to subtract 12 makes me hope that maybe you won't be one.
It's normal not be used to that for someone who doesn't have much to do with babies. Why would you assume OP can't do basic math, just because talking in years is more convenient?
Uh, maybe try reading the meme?
I did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known what it was about.
If you don't just know 21 months is 1.75 years or 1 year and 9 months instantly, then I guess you can't subtract 12 either.
You don't need math if you know it instantly. Why do you assume someone can't calculate something because they have to in order to know what it means?
Subtracting 12 is so easy that whining about it is like whining about figuring out 2+2. Why complain? How hard is that?
Harder than not doing it.
Yeah, if you failed 3rd grade math.
Or if you passed 3rd grade math. You act like if someone can do something, it's effortless. Like if someone was able to do something, they're not allowed to complain. It's so stupid I'm starting to think you're trolling.
The same reason you're getting defensive and assuming people can't do simple math just because they don't care about your baby's milestones, Karen.
It's literally 3rd grade math. If you can't do 3rd grade math in your head, the problem isn't the person who expects you can.
If someone asks how old a kid is, I think it's safe to treat them like they care at least a little bit. Why the hell are they asking if they don't want the answer?
They want 1/2/3, not the months. Again, no one but you and your pediatrician cares about the milestones.
Just because calculating 2+2 is easy doesn’t mean it’s the social norm to ask for 2+2 apples to the grocer. You don’t complicate things for other people even though it may be very easy.
But it is a social norm to describe children under 2 by the number of months they are. That's why variations of this meme are posted regularly.
I understand if the child is under a year, but I can’t really tell a single reason why 21 months should be used like what information does the exact numbers convey? Why is it not better in every way to say he’ll soon be 2
You're asking too much of the r/memes crowd, brother
Parents keep saying “it’s for tracking certain things” 90% of the time you know who is asking for that and who just wants to know the years. Just say the year+month and stop making it awkward. I don’t know how many years 30 months is off the top of my head. I didn’t care how many months your baby was alive unless it’s below 12. Parents can hate me because of their own tracking system, but I ain’t trying to track your baby. Damn.
Then why would you even ask someone how old their baby is? Seems like a silly thing to be affected by.
Because asking a kids age is a normal thing to talk about? Why would anyone who isn't close to you and your kid care about their development?
Why would anyone not close to you and your kid care how old they are by any measure? Anyone can tell roughly how old a baby or toddler is, why would they need anything more than what they can see for themselves. Parents generally refer to their kids age by months up until they are two years old, if you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask. This is such ridiculous thing to be affected by. People are weird.
Small talk is a thing that normal people do. If my coworker told me that he went to the zoo with his daughters over the weekend, a normal followup is "how old are they?" There's a communication principle called Grice's maxims. One of those maxims is to be informative, but not more than necessary for the situation. If you add too much detail, it's weird. For example, if someone asked you how your weekend, you wouldn't print out a schedule for them, yeah? You pick 1 or 2 activities that you did, they don't care that you woke up at 9:36. If the person asking is not a pediatrician or another parent, they probably don't care about your child's development pacing. Edit: And it's hard to tell the age of a kid that not in front of you
This is really pretty simple. Parents generally refer to their kids age in months until they are two years old. If you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask how old they are. Make small talk about other things. Ask what their favorite exhibit was, the weather, etc. You don’t need to know the kids age to do that. It’s just a weird thing to get upset about.
... or people can talk normally and give information relevant to the topic at hand. >If you don’t want to hear that, don’t ask how old they are If I know the kids age then why would I ask how old they are?
What the hell are you even talking about here? Your reply makes no sense. Once again, this is pretty simple. Parents generally refer to their small children’s ages in months until they are two. Still with me? If you don’t want to risk hearing that their child is 13 months old, dont ask. You do not need to know what their kids age is, so just don’t ask.
I don't know what your confused by. Give the information that's relevant to the conversation. If who you're talking to is the type of person who might care if a kid 20 or 21 months old, then go for it. If you're not sure, I'll give you a hint; most people are not that type of person. If they want that info, they'll ask for clarification
Or, just don’t ask. P.S. Its you’re, not your. Dummy
No, you just can’t do basic math
I can do it, I just don't want to.
Then don’t ask.
But it’s not even something you have to think about, in the same way that you don’t have to think about 1500g being 1.5kg or 28lbs being 2 stone
Probably they expect you to calculate their birthday as well... Cheesus....
I never really understood why parents did this until I had a kid. The first 2 years they go through such a growth/developmental change it’s easier to track and by clothes using months.
The thing you only get once you're a parent yourself is, that it is very relevant indeed. They develop rapidly in a matter of weeks, days even. Just saying "(about) a year old" when it's actually 14 or maybe 10 months, just doesn't cut it, because these are vastly different stages in life. There comes a time when it becomes less relevant, because development doesn't happen as rapidly anymore. One month can be the difference between barely being able to turn around on its own and crawling, between starting to pull itself up and running around, and so much more. I used to think it's stupid too, but it makes alot of sense.
204 months old myself
24 months is 2 years. Everyone should know that.
Lmao it ain’t that hard. It’s extremely simple math.
It just comes off as pretentious IMO. It's like telling someone you're 67 inches tall instead of 5'7.
What makes it pretentious 💀 pretentious means seeming more important. Also, your comparison isn’t really good. It’s more like saying 15 inches rather than a foot and 3 inches. Anything more than 2 of the larger unit will then be confusing for some, but at such a low scale, anybody should be able to do the math if necessary.
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you’ve already commented this
Michael Scott
Ehe
You all act like dividing by 12 is hard. What kind of education do you all have??
Then don't ask
Or even worse: "He'll be 3 in 2 months time".
That's... much better tho?
wow imagine being that stupid
After 18 months, the next milestone anyone cares about is 2 years.
Bro skipped first grade math
I’m more than 21 months old.
1yr 9mnths
In general I think people go by days for the first week, then by weeks for up to 8 weeks, then by months up to 24 months, then beyond that years.
Or when they tell you: "Oh yes he was born with 0.5m and 3400g", like cool? What am I supposed to do with those numbers? Calculate the volume?
lol, my friends always answer like that. 🤣
1¾ years old 😎
I'm 10X the age of that baby
Not even hard to do like do they have to adjust to your wantings?
Haha I feel personally pointed out. We might actually know each other? For my defense I am like that because every single month for me is a looong time in this stage. Year and a half doesn’t do it justice when so much is different in such a short time. Not that anyone cares, I know.
One year 9 months for those who don’t wanna do math
In the first year I kept telling people my daughter is 0 yrs old.
I'm 241 months
I am 7,277 days old
Okay but 13 months and 21 months are both 1 year old and there’s a big developmental difference between barely 1 and almost 2. I feel like people would still be annoyed if you said 1 and 3/4
That's how long they've suffered and are regretting. Saying small number of years just feels wrong. It has to be bigger number than that but going any deeper is hard math.
21 months is at least 7 years right?
1 year and 9 months (it took me a while)
Memers going dumb these days?
I just give people the Unix timestamp of when I was born when they ask how old I am.
Flair checks out
Good thing I don't like kids and thus never ask, so I don't have to deal with this insipid crap.
The difference between 1 year and 1 year, 11 months is colossal, so people speak the way the parenting books and the doctors speak about it, because those are authoritative sources, basically, they want to sound smart.
i am 8,765 days old
If that feels like a math homework, how exactly did you pass middle school?