I found a notebook buried at the bottom of a box, one I kept during my son's first year. Each page had a month written on it β some were full, some blank.
That notebook was supposed to be a meticulous record of every milestone. Month one: feeding, sleep, first smile. Month two: first cooing, first time holding his head up.
Then life happened. By month three, entries got sparser. After month five, mostly blank pages.
What I wish I'd known: every baby develops at their own pace. The "sleep when the baby sleeps" advice rarely works. You don't need all the gadgets. Trust your instincts. This phase passes quickly.
That notebook now sits on my shelf as a reminder β not of what I failed to document, but of how present I was in those early days. Sometimes living the moments matters more than recording them.