Recording Baby Milestones and Preserving Memories

I love recording baby milestones and memories. I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the ways I’ve been documenting the things that are important to me.

1) The journal

I bought the one above one when I was a couple of weeks pregnant and wrote in it most days of the pregnancy. A journal was better than an actual diary as I could be free and easy about how often and how much I wrote. I charted day-to-day pregnancy stuff as well as all of the important dates and exciting developments. I continued the diaries for the first few weeks after my children were born and then did an entry at six months, at one-year, 18 months and then subsequent birthdays. 

Waterstones do some lovely ones. 

2) The baby book

I was given a lovely baby book from at my baby shower. It has about 100 pages; some for adding photos of particular events and other specific pages to document everything from ‘The Birth’, who the baby looks like in the early days, how the baby sleeps at night, baby milestones and favourite foods to family tree, first hair cut (complete with area to stick said hair on), first holiday, first Christmas and so on. There’s also space to log the details of the Christening/baby naming ceremony. Great for ‘organising’ the memories. Each section is a nice length, so it’s very easy to maintain.

3) The traditional photo album

For each daughter, my husband bought me a leather-bound photograph album and had each girl’s name embossed on them. I have one from Smythson and two from Aspinal of London. They are gorgeous and both companies personalised them. However, they are not for the faint-hearted or light of pocket coming in at £315 and £165 each respectively (minus the personalisation). There are far cheaper photograph albums available that are beautiful; these were very special Christmas presents! I have long periods of not updating them even if I have taken the photographs, then get loads printed off at once. By the way, Inkifi does some great photo products. 

4) The memory box

For Sofia, I was lucky enough to have a box especially made by a good friend for baby memories.

For my twins I bought these lovely baby boxes, which cost £12.99 each from a company called Phoenix Trading (which doesn’t exist now). 

The memory boxes have things in like their scans, new baby cards, gift tags off presents, the first babygros they wore in the hospital and their baby id bracelets from the hospital. I continue to add to these with bits and bobs such as first passport photos and mementoes from their first birthdays. 

5) Facebook

Facebook has been a huge part of preserving memories for me and a lot of photos end up on there long before I find the time to print them up and lovingly mount in the aforementioned photo albums. I’ve found the site great for making online albums for all of my three at a certain number of weeks, months and at particular events. This is great for the random snaps that I wouldn’t put in the formal albums but memories I want to preserve all the same. It’s also fantastic for instantly sharing moments with relatives and friends.