How do say your childs age appropriately?

Question

I know, funny question, but think about this: Why is it when a child is under 2 years old, you have to specify everything to the second. You don't say she is almost two, you say she is 22 months. Once you hit the magic two mark, then you can say she is 2 or 2 1/2 instead of 30 months. I see a lot of people who do this, and wonder why. Is there some reason, or is it just a habbit that is passed from person to person?

If I say she is 1 1/2, my wife fixes it by saying she is 18 mo. Just curious to find the reason for this.

Answer 1

The milestones are so close together when they are that young, if you say 1 year old, that spand of time between 1 and 2 is such a big difference...so they break it down to months

Answer 2

If the age is told by # of months, its more concrete than saying 1.5 yrs.

Maybe the parent(s) wants to hear complements from others when they hear that a child at 18 months is "tall for his/her age," or other complements.

Also, remember when the baby was brand new, each parent would count the infant's age by days, then weeks, then months.

Another reason could be that the mom cannot wait for the child to be older so she counts by month.

But if you already said that a child is 1 & 1/2 yrs old and someone corrected you that the child is 18 months, tell that person that its SAME DIFFERENCE.

Answer 3

before 2 years all clothing comes in those increments which is why I personally do it, if i say 3 mo then if someone sees something for my boy on sale they pick it up in say 6-9 mo instead of 3-6 mo, also doctors appts are also done on that scale , and after about 2 you cant really easily keep track of months can you imagine a 29 almost 30 year old saying I am a 354 mo old and at that pt again doc appts are every year not every 6 wks or 3 mo or 6 mo

Answer 4

The 1st 2 years are milestones every month or so. An 18 mo old is not the same as a 20 mo old in many ways. It is a mom thing I think. We track our kids to the month, check it out with the books and in relation to other kids.

Answer 5

For us, after our son hit 1 we would round to the nearest half-year.

If he was 15 months, we'd say "almost a year and a half."

Now he's nearly 23 months, and we'll say "he'll turn 2 at the beginning of September."

When you just have the baby, you're so used to thinking in terms of weeks that you think of the baby's age in weeks.

After a year, you're tired of that and now move to months. Because there is a "HUGE" difference between 17 and 18 months. That's important to point out to some people.

After 2 though, I just go by the whole year.

Answer 6

I asked someone this the other day when they said 20 months because i thought it was stupid. Apparently you say 20 months instead of 1 and a half because there is a big difference for a baby between 18 months and 20 months.

Answer 7

NO CLUE! I wonder the same thing.

My guess is that by medical standards, they evaluate a child's development based on how many months old she is, so the parent's naturally use that marker to tell their common age, since they have to keep up with the month's anyway.

To me it's the same thing during pregnancy. Why do I have to say I'm 16 weeks pregnant? Why can't I just say 4 months?

Answer 8

With my first I was like that....'He's 19 1/2 months, almost 20 months old'.
I think I got it from all the doctor visits between pregnancy(you're 21 weeks now!) and the pediatrician visits. We kinda get trained to do it I think.
Now with five????? I'm like,"My kids are 16,15,10,6,and 3!!!"
I have NO scruples to figure out how many weeks they are from b-day to the next b-day! LOL!!!!

Answer 9

I never really thought about it, but I look at it from a medical persepective. Once they hit 24 months they refer to there age in years not in months. I think that is the only reason I do it.

Answer 10

Newborn is up to age one, age one is up to age two, ect. Kids' mentality and maturity are so different from when they had their first bday to a year and a half which is why I think some parents do this. And it kinda keeps us on track anyway because when we take our kids to the doc they want to know how many months not years.