I always thought that The Boy would have the perfect baby book. Something that I made myself, something that I had obsessed over. As life got going, that just wasn’t to be. Read on to see how I’m capturing baby’s firsts and chronicling his milestones, and learn how the moms of The Mommy Mindset are doing it too!
Ashley: I totally planned on doing one! I had one growing up and it was to take it out and look at it every so often. However, I’ve been horrible about putting anything together. Luckily for my son’s first birthday, my sister (who knows me too well) gave us a baby book she had started for him since she know I hadn’t gotten around to it. I’m so glad she did! However, I’ve been bad about updating it 🙁
Emily: I’m horrible about this, too. I purchased something that was called “All About Me” – it was the size of a recipe card box and contained index cards that you were supposed to fill out for various milestones. I’m embarrassed to say that I never used it. All of my son’s milestones are written in my planner. I recently discovered Project Life, and plan to make one for his first three years. I hope to stay more on top of it going forward.
I also have a letter sized tote box that contains folders with all of the art projects that we do. That makes me feel a little better about slacking in the “baby book” department.
Lena: I am not… but I feel very bad about it. I am not a fan of scrapbooking and I have no time for it. The best thing I can do is making annual photobooks. I think ut shows the highlight 🙂
Gena: I knew before I even had my sons that I would be horrible at keeping up with it, so I never bought one. Instead, I bought the “My First Year” calendars and just write down things as they happen. This has worked really well and I still do it for my three year old. The calendar is a nice gift for Christmas and I just save them. Maybe they’ll care one day, maybe not, but they’re nice for me to have! I’m like Lena and I make annual photo books. They’re a lot of work, but so much fun to look at!
Ghada: I am terrible at chronicling. I tried a scrapbook with #1 and got about 5 pages in before I decided to scrap that idea LOL Too expensive and I didn’t feel I was doing the pics justice. Though I must say I was happy with the 5 or so pages I did create. I have a TON of photos and videos of both kids, but I can’t really say they are organized very well. I just backed up all of our family videos (mainly of the kids) to an external hard drive – feel pretty clever just for doing that 🙂
Mary: I was soooooo good with doing my son’s first year and then – nothing. I have so many pictures! I even tried to blog with both of my kids thinking it would be easier but alas, I wish I would have gotten one of those fill in as you go. I think with the rise of scrap-booking the fill in books feel out of fashion 🙁
Ashley: I bought one of those collage pictures frames and put a bunch of pictures from his first year in it. That’s probably all I have time to do!
Thanks for sharing how you’re capturing baby’s firsts and chronicling your children’s milestones Lena of Way2Goodlife, Ashley of Maryland Momma’s Rambles & Reviews, Ghada of Mama goes BAM, Gena of Life with Captain Fussy Bucketsand Mary of I Need a Playdate.
How are you capturing your baby’s firsts? Are you doing a better job at it than you thought?
I’m terrible about keeping a baby book. Honestly, that’s part of the reason that I blog. I’m awesome about blogging and photographing those memories.
I did buy a baby book, it is pretty blank at the moment. I have been good about taking pictures and jotting a sentence or two down in a journal when things happen. I plan to use that to go back and fill in the baby book.
Before my son was born, I bought a super cute Peter Rabbit baby book. I entered as much information as I could before he arrived. Well, he was born on July 18th and I still haven’t put in much info!! I’m really bad it keeping up with it. I guess I just need to leave it out on the kitchen counter or somewhere that I can see it everyday and it will remind me to update it.
I have a 2.5 year old and a 1 month old and I’m ashamed to say neither has a baby book. I do have all their milestones recorded though in anticipation of making a gorgeous handmade baby book. I suspect I might not get the chance until they go away to university! 😛
We are doing a terrible job of keeping any kind of formal record, but we do have a pretty good paper trail of milestones in our email archives, on social networking sites, chat transcripts, and tons and tons of unsorted digital photos. My kid’s babyhood is well documented, just not well organized!
I suppose that I am doing a great job documenting, too! I just NEED to get it all organized!
I got a calender with stickers from the hospital with my first child. I managed to note quite a few of her firsts with the calender. The rest of the children are dependent on my faulty memory. Sad, really sad! I should probably journal what I can remember for the future.
I have a baby book that ive done well with keeping up on and I take a million pics and have an nonlinear share site as well as photo albums of all the prints! However its a lot of work to keep up on all these things so I don’t know how well ill do when I have a second baby :/
I have a baby book but I’m not keeping up with it very well for my 10 week old. My husband is actually the one who’s been capturing all the firsts. He seems to always have a camera around at the right time! That’s allowed us to keep a pretty in depth website going with all kinds of videos and baby pictures for our long distance friends and relatives to see.
That’s great that your husband is tracking all of the firsts! So nice to see when the dad is involved in capturing the memories, too! Congrats on your family’s new edition! Enjoy all of the firsts, time passes so quickly.
I have actually started a remember pail. I jot little notes of things I want ot remember with dates on them and save for later when I have time to get their baby books and scrapbooks done. I don’t want to forget dates and this was the best way for me to have a reminder without forgetting!
I am HORRIBLE at this! I have done just a couple of pages in my sons baby book and scrap book…and he is 11 yrs old! I have all the papers from the Doctors well baby checks tucked in his book in hopes of updating his book someday! With my 11 month old I just write milestones down on our wall calender for now and I will input them someday!
I received a prgnancy journal from one of my close friends, and for the first 4 months, did it everyday. Then, I just… didn’t. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s bad at keeping these memories organized! But now I don’t know what to do with the journal! Do I keep it to cherish the first few months’ memories? Or will it just come back to haunt me the baby’s grown up?
I’m a scrapbooker, so that helps–but digital scrapbooking is a little quicker and cleaner! I love the project life idea! It’s fun to go back and see the normal things that are done each week/month, etc!
I have heard of project life (by Becky Higgins?) and I was really considering doing it for little one when she gets here! Thanks for reminding me. 🙂 I’d love to hear your experience with it in later blog posts?? 🙂
I’m horrible at recording milestones. I’ve marked a lot of stuff on Facebook though, so I might go back later and put something together using a Shutterfly book or something. One thing I do have though, is a monogrammed glass box for DD from West Elm. It’s gorgeous, and the really memorable stuff goes in it, like her hospital bands, first hair cut will go in there, etc..