A kitten changes faster in her first weeks at home than at almost any later stage, and the changes are easy to miss day by day while being obvious in a written record. One running record, kept in a single place and updated in short dated entries, turns those weeks into evidence: for you, for your vet, and for anyone who cares for her later. Start it on the day she arrives and keep entries brief enough that you will actually maintain them.
Weight and Food, Recorded the Same Way Each Time
Weigh her every few days at the same time of day, on the same scales and ideally before a meal, and write the result down immediately with its date. Consistency is what makes the numbers useful: a weight taken after breakfast on a different scale cannot be compared fairly with yesterday's, while a steady series taken the same way shows her growth pattern at a glance. If a reading ever breaks the pattern sharply, that entry is the one to show your vet rather than a worry to sit on alone.
Beside the weights, record what and how much she eats. Note the food she is on, the amount offered at each meal and roughly how much she actually eats, plus any change you make and how she responds to it. Kittens transitioning from a breeder's or rescue's diet to yours need that trail, because if her appetite dips or her digestion unsettles, the record shows exactly what changed and when. Water habits are worth a line too, especially in the first days when a shy kitten may drink less than she should.
Litter Progress and the Small Milestones
Litter progress deserves its own running notes. Record where her tray sits, how reliably she uses it, and every accident with its location and likely trigger, such as a tray that was being cleaned, a door that was shut or a room that was new to her. Patterns appear quickly: accidents beside a closed door are an access problem, while accidents in one corner suggest a second tray would help there. Written down, these stop being frustrations and become solvable information.
Add the milestones that mark her settling in, dated as they happen: her first confident exploration beyond her starting room, her first visitor handled calmly, the first night she chooses to sleep near you. These entries feel sentimental, but they carry practical weight too, because social confidence and its pace are things a vet or behaviour adviser will ask about, and memory alone blurs the order within weeks.
The First Vet Visit, Recorded From the Paperwork
Give the first vet visit its own full entry. Write down what the vet examined, what the vet advised, and any follow-up the vet asked for, while the visit is still fresh. Vaccination and worming appear in your record only as things recorded from the vet's paperwork: copy the details exactly as the practice documents them, and file that paperwork with the record. The practice's document is the record that counts, not a schedule you construct yourself, so never add ages, intervals or doses of your own to her file.
Bring the running record to that visit and to every later one. Weights taken the same way, food notes and litter patterns answer half a vet's questions before they are asked, and gaps in the record are visible honestly rather than reconstructed from guesswork. Her Pet Passport, stored through KinsLe, keeps those entries, her identification details and the vet's documents together in one portable packet that grows with her from kittenhood onward.