Rosie is 19 months old and I JUST finished her baby book. When I posted that on Instagram, I was shocked at how many moms out there never finished their kids’ baby books. The moms that I spoke to said it was too overwhelming and too time-consuming. I feel like the way I did Rosie’s baby book was relatively pain free, and I honestly feel like I “hacked” this whole baby book thing! Here are some tips and tricks for getting that baby book done quickly and easily!
Before I give you the hot tips, there are two things that will make this job WAY EASIER! First, its extremely helpful to have as much documented as possible. Since the day Rosie was born, I wrote down EVERYTHING. When you sit down to write in the book, you can just copy from the note in your phone. It’s hard to remember every little thing, so write it down! I think there are apps you can use for this as well. Second, its also extremely helpful if your photos are organized. I have thousands and thousands of photos of Rosie and I did absolutely nothing to organize these photos until she was almost 1. Don’t be like me! In hindsight, each month (or even each week!) I would have deleted photos, organized photos, and printed photos, and then worked on the baby book in real time. But this is what ACTUALLY happened! I created an album in my phone for each month of Rosie’s life (1-12). I added my favorites to the albums and then printed them. God bless my mother-in-law who put them all in order and wrote the dates on the back!!
Here Are the Hot Tips!
Buy An Old School Album
I purchased a baby book on Amazon, and as I was filling it out, I realized it just wasn’t working for me. The prompts were dumb, and not things that I cared about. There were pages about like ‘how mom and dad met’ etc. (not into that). I also didn’t like that the book was bound and I couldn’t add pages in where I wanted or take pages out (unless I ripped them). The book also wasn’t long enough! Basically, it didn’t have the right content for me and didn’t have enough of it! I decided to buy this old school album ($15) with the clear sticky pages and I love it. I have free reign to add what I want, where I want it. The clear pages allow me to move things around whenever too. I can take a photo out and use it for something and easily put it back. The photos are not damaged with tape or glue either.
Write Captions on Notecards
I bought these pink notecards from Amazon (only $7) to write all of my captions. I wanted to be able to write what I wanted to without any prompts or anything. It was important to me to document what is special to me, and what will hopefully be special to Rosie someday as well. The notecards (like the photos) can be moved around and are not permanent. I like the idea that I can move the cards around, add to them, etc.
Do Two Pages For Each Month
The most overwhelming part about the baby book was figuring out how to organize it. Traditional baby books had pages for first bath, first steps, etc. but they missed the little moments. I wanted to just recap all of the details (big and small) that happened each month. I realized that all I really wanted was a 2-page spread per month. For each month, I wrote two cards, one with her progress and the other with the fun activities that we did that month. To accompany the cards, I chose 4-8 photos that I liked of her. That’s ALL. Literally, just set a goal of doing two pages per month (24 total) and simply your life.
