Cover Image: My son’s Win Journal
And why it matters
On June 5th, I greeted my son into this world. It has been over a week, and it has already had tons of ups and downs. I wrote about my not-so-smooth experience in this article. During hard times, I needed a way to remind myself about all the impressive things my son was doing, so I created a Win Journal for him.
This is something I was already doing for myself, but it needed some adaptation for him. When I started recording all the good things he did, I quickly realized he put me to shame when it came to learning new things and adapting.
Before I recorded these wins, I didn’t know the real scope of his growth. When my wife and I just went with the flow and didn’t keep track, we thought he wasn’t improving much. We thought he wasn’t adaptable and wasn’t getting much better. Our expectations were definitely too high for him, which is totally unfair for an infant.
Now that we record his feats, I’m in awe of how much has changed in only a few days. And when the going gets tough (every night), I remind myself that he is learning at such a rapid pace that I only need to give him a few days to adapt. Most adults can’t do that, but amazingly, babies can.
How I record my son’s little victories
As we were looking for apps to record victories, I quickly realized I could simply adapt my own Win Journal for his needs. I created this template in Notion, which you can duplicate and use for yourself:
Click to go to the template
Step 1. Recognize a win
The first step is to decide if something is a win or not. I tend to keep this simple by asking myself this question: “Did he do something good or improved on something?” If the answer is yes, I record it.
Feel free to create your own rules.
To help you, I’ve categorized wins based on a few tags, like:
Sleep
Walks
Feeding
Diaper
Strength/training
Skills
Calm
Eating
There are more in the template. You can also add your own. The more categories you can think of, the easier it will be to recognize your child’s wins.
Step 2. Record the win
To get started, press the New button in the top-right corner of the list:
It will open a panel like this:
You can fill it out with your own information, but here’s an example:
It automatically records the win. You can close the popup when done.
The win rating is based on a 5-point system. 1 = Very small win and 5 = Epic win. This is obviously subjective, so don’t think too hard on this. The idea is that you record both small and big wins.
Step 3. Review their Win Journal as needed
I like to look at my son’s achievements at the end of the day. This gives me an idea of how he’s progressing and what I can do the next day to help him get to the next level.
It’s also a good idea to have a look at their Win Journal when the goings get tough. It’s a good reminder that not everything is hopeless.
Raising a baby is harder than I expected. Keeping a record of baby boy’s little achievements makes me realize how much this little “thunder” learns and gives me hope that things can and will get better during tough times. Use this template to record your own child’s wins. I hope it will be useful for you and your child.
You can do this!