Baby Books: Obsessive? Maybe. Worthwhile? Absolutely.
You may recall that I am pretty sentimental and highly detail-oriented. I’m all about saving ticket stubs and programs from events, and I carry my camera with me everywhere I go (funnest example: after my son was born, I had my baby and my camera on my lap when I was being wheeled from the delivery room to my recovery room. How many moms take pictures from their gurneys? See picture below.) My children are 2 and 1, respectively, and that means f
or the past couple of years, I have been deliberately keeping up with their first-year baby books. I received both books as gifts when I was pregnant with each child.
It was fun to have the baby books while I was pregnant, because they contained pages about life before the baby was born. So I already had a lot that I got to “fill in”. (Are any of you out there giddy “filler-inner-types”?) There are also lots of spaces for pictures and clippings, scrapbook-style. So I spent a bit of time at the computer, printing out different-sized pictures to include in our family’s stories.
Then, in order to make sure I didn’t forget any details, I took the books with me to the hospital for each birth experience. When I wasn’t spending time with my new baby, I had lots of down time to fill in information about the nurses and doctors who helped bring my child into the world. I got to share how I felt in those moments, which I’m convinced I captured with more clarity than if I tried to remember when I got home. And the excitement and emotion in my words is palpable.
Throughout the baby’s first year, I filled in pages about each month of their lives, and took pictures on their one-month birthdays. Like most baby books, there are also pages that help me keep records of important firsts, doctor visits, teeth, etc.
I was also vigilant about keeping important momentos for the pockets: church announcements, baby announcements of our friends/family, wedding invitations, newspaper articles (ie. the Harry Potter phenomenon when the 7th book released happened right around my son’s birth), stickers, and notes.
Looking back on this exercise, I feel it was very valuable. If I didn’t already enjoy doing this kind of thing so much, I would have found it tedious or time-consuming at times, but worth it, for sure. It is something I know the kids & I will treasure for years to come.
If you are looking for a way to capture your baby’s first year, here are some resources on the topic:
- Hallmark products (both of my books are Hallmark)
- Blog books from blurb.com (turns your blog into a published book!)
- More cute baby books at BabySakes.com
Are you a “giddy filler-inner type”? Do you keep up with baby books on a consistent basis? What are some tips or ideas you have read about or done with your own children?
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What a great post, Dawn. I didn’t get a baby book for my first one. Now I wish I had. I did have a blank baby calendar from Hallmark, that I used to fill in important dates and take notes. I started to write a letter to her every three months, but I didn’t keep up with it. I did take at least one photo of her a day for practically her first year of life. Then I got burned out on taking photos of her and my camera broke. Then I borrowed my in-laws and a piece of it broke and I taped it up and it is all jank. But I need to start taking photos of her again. My mom is scrapbooking more of my baby than I am. It gives her something to do, but I have to mail her cds of pictures. Anyway, I will definitely get a baby book for the next one, because I do love to fill in blanks.
how interesting, because i am obsessed with documenting! i think my son might be the documented kid in history. i started a baby book, but lost interest. i journaled a lot, and for 5 years, every single day of his life, i wrote down one thing about him. i had to give it up. it was just too much. i also am a digital scrapbooking fiend! i have about 10 volumes so far. i am on the creative team at designerdigitals.com, which is what led me to create moonandbackstudios.com.
telling your kids’ stories is so important. i have precious few photos of my own, and i want to show my son when he’s a teenager that he really did have an awesome childhood. i’ll have the proof!
i’m so jealous! your baby books look sooooo cool! i started one for joaquin …. i don’t think i even got to the birth part before i quit. i think part of the reason was that i didn’t have a “baby book” like you do with random leads that i could just fill in. i was doing a scrapbook so everything had to come from my own brain and i actually had to be creative. which is good, but time-consuming.
for frida i didn’t even get the announcements printed. what a horrible mom i am. honestly though i have them saved on the computer. i literally just never printed them out. we ran out of ink the day i started to print them, and then i just put it off and never went back.
your books really do look gorgeous and make me want to get off my butt and make my kids something special like that.
Dawn, I am so terrible at doing stuff like this. I’m the mom that gets stressed out trying to fill in all the details. However, I have made a couple of photobooks for the the grandparents — Shutterfly has some great resources for lazy scrapbookers like myself. I have all the pictures and “firsts” written down somewhere, I just need to compile it. Which I will do. Someday. Maybe.
Amanda: I think doing a picture-a-day for a year of the baby is a way cool endeavor, and you deserve major props for completing it. Maybe you can publish all of them, shutterfly-style, to have on your family bookshelf for the future. I plan to do that with my project 365.
Myra: I bet the things you are making for Jake are unbelievable. Maybe you can link us to some digital scrapbooking options?
Jenny & Sharon (and anyone else who would say similar things as them): I am sorry if this post bummed you out about how you haven’t “kept up” with it properly. That wasn’t my intent.
We say it all the time here at TMC: we have too much to be stressed out about or too much to feel guilty about to add another (ultimately unnecessary) thing to that list. So ignore this post if it’s not helping you.
Personally, I say “What a horrible mom I am” or “I am so terrible at doing stuff like this” in response to posts like Healthy Snacks for Kids. It’s the first example that popped into my head. (I saw Amelia’s article from a week or two ago and thought, Oh crap. I am a terrible mom for feeding my kids so much junk!) Of course, I am not a terrible mom, and of course, neither are you. We all just have our strengths in different areas. I’m all about celebrating those (with a cookie, no less)!
p.s. The most important thing is that when our kids are grown, they have our love for them embedded into who they are, 100%. That love is shown in thousands of different ways, not just in a memory book.
You’ve done a fantastic job Dawn. I wish I was more consistent with keeping up my 2 kids books, but unfortunately I’m not. Some baby books are great, some are not. My son’s I bought at Babies R Us, and my daughter’s book is from Target in which I received as a gift. The Target baby book is awful, while the Babies R Us baby book is awesome.