Just out of sheer curiosity, do you know where your baby book is? Not your baby’s. Yours. If you had to pick five mementos to take with you on a deserted island, would that be one of them?
I’m guessing there is at least a handful of you who said you have no idea where your baby book is and you most certainly wouldn’t take it with you on an island.
I have a baby book floating around somewhere, but my mom didn’t finish it because she was all of us: a hard-working, bad ass mama who didn’t have time for that ish. However! When I graduated from high school, she gave me the most incredible scrapbook filled with my achievements and awards (like that Presidential Award from P.E., hahaha!), pictures, letters, and wonderful memories that I never would have kept for myself. She knew what she was doing.
As I’ve tried my hand at maintaining baby books while also juggling, ya know, everything in the history of ever, I realize that I just don’t like it. It’s time consuming, I hardly remember they exist, and even when I try, I never have the right pictures anyway. So with that, I bring you my five baby book alternatives.
My youngest’s baby book. Most of the pages look like this.
1. A Memory Box (AKA: The Susan Gray Approach)
Basically, this would be perfect for the mom who runs away from all things scrapbooking and crafts and monthly picture organization. So if your art closet is actually your kitchen junk drawer and it consists of 7 year old glue and a dull pair of scissors, this is for you. First, find a box. Then use it to save pictures, favorite toys, memorable outfits, letters, special dates, art work, handmade gifts, yada, yada, yada. It can be collected over the years and stashed away until you are ready to do something else with it. Or just hand it over to your child when they’re older. They’ll love it.
2. MomentGarden App (AKA: the Minimalist Mama Approach)
If you hate the idea of having papers, books, pictures, and clutter all scattered about then download this app. There are quite a few similar ones to choose from, but this one was my favorite. You just plug in your baby’s birthdate and then you are free to add written stories, pictures, and videos as you go about your mom-life. You can also share it with other family members so they can see all the updates. The other awesome thing about this is you can have everything printed into a nice little book when you’re ready, and neatly placed on your child’s bookshelf.
3. Journals (AKA: The Emotionally Connected, Sappy Mama Approach)
Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but written sentimental words from you are worth, like, a trillion dollars! If you like to express yourself through writing, poetry, and journaling, then creating something where you write about all the highs and lows and exciting milestones would be so special. You know that would be making it to the deserted island FOR SURE.
4. Time Capsule (The History Buff Mama Approach)
This is pretty much a memory box, but with added things that are specific to the time, like old cell phones or newspaper clippings or even things that you think may be valuable one day. Just imagine these fun conversations: “When you were just 3 months old we used to use this to communicate through something called texting. Oh and look at this! This is a picture of that crazy president who…” Okay, okay. Not in this post.
5. Chatbooks (The Insta-Loving, Picture-Obsessed Mama Approach)
I set up a Chatbooks account a while ago just because I loved the idea of having Instagram pictures printed in a book. But this would be such a great idea for a baby memory book! You can either create a baby-specific insta account or use your pre-existing one. Then link it to Chatbooks and go about your posting ways. Chatbooks will do the rest. Once you get to a certain number of pictures, it automatically prints it into a great little book (each book includes 60 pictures and costs between $8.00 and $12.00/book). Then it is mailed to you. You have an app on your phone so you can edit the captions and pictures you want included. I’ve even seen some people take out the captions and hand-write their own once the book comes. Oh yeah! And you can back-date your books too. So if you’ve already posted 100 pictures of your little one you can turn those into a book without reposting! Easy- peasy, lemon-squeeeeezy.
No matter what you decide to do, just remember the whole reason baby books were created was to celebrate our children. And you know what? You do that every single day anyway, baby book/memory box/time capsule or not. You’re such a rockstar.
Because Ur a Mom Now.