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Early years

17th Jul 2023

Parent calls for others to stop counting toddlers’ ages in months after they turn one

Ellen Fitzpatrick

We all do it and while most of us do it naturally, some parents are left confused as to why we count our toddlers’ age in months rather than years.

When describing a toddler’s age, we often say “they’re 18 months” rather than a year and a half old.

Typically, we do this up until our child has turned two. It’s normally done as children grow so quickly at this age, and the difference between a one-year-old and a year and a half can be huge.

But for one parent, they cannot wrap their head around this and took to Reddit to ask others can we as a community ditch the term.

They said: “Why do parents do this? I have a 2-and-a-half-old and it’s kind of annoying when asking parents and they’re like “oh he’s 38 mos” or whatever lol after a year it shouldn’t go by months anymore…[SIC].

“I mean it doesn’t ruin my day or anything I just think it’s silly lol.”

While it may only be a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, many other parents took to the comments to explain to the poster why it is that we do this.

One said: “I’m okay with it up to age two — there is a huge difference between a kid who just turned one and a kid who is about to turn two. But I agree that saying 38 months seems a little excessive.”

Another said: “I think for any age, you should use the smaller unit until you are two of the bigger unit.

“So you count in days until your newborn is 2 weeks, weeks until they are 2 months, months until they are 2 years, and years until they are 2 decades (then you say, “I’m in my 20s, 30s, 40s, etc).”

A third wrote: “13mo, 19mo, and 23mo are different species.”

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