How to Keep Your Family on Track and Celebrate Baby’s Milestones
Isn’t it amazing all the changes and transformations that your baby goes through in the first couple years of their life? Every little advancement or development milestone that is met is a huge win that deserves to be celebrated.
Not everyone will be overthrown with excitement when your baby gets their first tooth, starts crawling, or says their first word, but as parents, it’s cause for a parade. We get ecstatic over these accomplishments.
We also love to keep track of their current schedule and like for everyone in the home to be” in the know” of what’s what when it comes to our kids to help keep them on their regimen and focused on their developmental goals.
It can be frustrating to consistently have to relay this info to your family members/caregivers or even a little disappointing when you share the exciting news of your baby’s advancements, but you’re the only one who seems to get what a big deal they are.
There are fun and easy ways to celebrate the wins and help keep everyone in the household on track with the latest in your little one’s life.
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The Schedule
A fun way to easily keep your household on track with your little one’s schedule is by displaying it somewhere for everyone to reference in the home.
For my son’s schedule, I purchased a nice whiteboard that I hung up in his room. It serves as a way to let the people in my house know what his day-to-day routine looks like and a fun piece of decor for his room.
I bought some fun, colorful erasable markers to document his schedule on the board. It’s aesthetically pleasing to look at and provides useful information. This is especially helpful for my nanny.
I include his schedule broken down by the hour, developmental goals we are working on, and activities to help achieve those goals. When my son was in his first year, I also included things like when his last and next bottles were, the last time he was changed, when he went down for his last nap, etc.
Common Area Tracking Tools
Pick an area in your home that’s a high-traffic area or somewhere that your family frequents to easily keep them up to date. In my house, we use the refrigerator as our information download.
I got a 3-pack of dry-eraser planners for the front of my fridge. The type of refrigerator front that I have is not magnetic, but these nifty things cling to the surface and are easy to remove and reapply.
There is a calendar, a ‘week of’, and a checklist provided on these sticky whiteboards. The pack comes with a tackie marker, but I purchased a six-pack of different colors as well.
I’m able to keep track of and display important dates and appointments on the calendar. I plan our weekly meals on the ‘week of’ planner and use the checklist for things we’re running low on in our home that need to be replenished.
The ‘week of’ is also used to plan my child’s lunches for the week and there is a column on the right side for notes to provide any other tidbits my family/nanny need to know for my son.
There are several organization and planning tools out there to help you easily display the information that will be helpful for your family. You’ll find it helps to keep everyone on the same page and provides a little relief from having to constantly repeat yourself (hopefully, lol).
Measuring Board
I was so excited to track my son’s growth. He’s growing at an incredible rate and I wanted to find a fun and beautiful way to document it.
Tracking your kid’s height is a very well-known tradition that parents love to do. Sometimes it will be a doorway or wall in your home, but I knew that the home we are currently in isn’t our forever home.
With that in mind, I started searching for alternatives. I fell in love with the idea of using a measuring board that I could mount on my kid’s wall.
I found several great options on Etsy. They had so many beautiful colors, designs, and fonts.
This is the route I would have gone, but then I remembered a dear friend of mine does wood burning.
Having her create it for me was so much more meaningful because I was able to have a piece of her amazing work and my son would always have a special gift from his auntie.
My son is also projected to be very tall, so I had her create it to go up to 7 feet + and she designed it based on ideas of what I was looking for while adding her own artistic flare.
It’s displayed in my son’s room, making a beautiful addition to his decor and when we eventually move, it will travel easily with us.
I would definitely recommend tracking your child’s height on something that can be relocated just in case you’re also planning on making a move in the future.
Milestones
These are fun to track and you can and should document them in your baby book if you have one. The only downfall of that is once you add it, the book typically goes back on the shelf or wherever you store it.
I decided I wanted to display his wins and advancements in a way that could be appreciated a little longer. Obviously, they go through milestones quickly, and displaying them all for an extended period of time would be a lot.
So, I chose to do so in a monthly format. I purchased a chalkboard that matched the size and aesthetic of the whiteboard that I use for his schedule and hung them side by side.
I got some pretty chalk paint markers and mapped out what I wanted to include on the board. I wrote his name in a fun calligraphy-style font at the top.
Below that I created a spot to document his age in months. I crafted out sections for his weight, height, and teeth count.
I finished it off with areas to document his “I cans”, “I love” and “I dislike” for that month. It turned out beautifully and is easily updated by removing the chalk paint with a damp cloth and filling in the new info.
Use these or similar ideas to help keep your family on track, display the achievements, and add some organized creativity to your home life.
Cheers, Warriors!
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and found it entertaining, educational, inspiring—hopefully, all three. Please be sure to leave any comments or questions you have in the Comments section below.
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