My Mom was pretty good about keeping a baby album for each of her kids. I like to look at mine whenever I go home. Especially now that I am a Mom myself. A baby album is a precious way to document that first year of your child’s life. However, scrapbooking has changed the baby albums in some ways.
Many people, like myself, scrapbook so much that there really isn’t a huge need for a baby album. However, I like to do both for my children. A baby album is an organized way to document all the little things like a first tooth, weight at each doctor’s check-up, and tiny little details we may not include on a scrapbook page. However, the thought of doing two albums (both a scrapbook and a baby album) may seem overwhelming to some people.
One reason why I do both is so that my children will have more details about their birth stories, when I was pregnant with them, and how they grew at each stage of infancy. It may come in handy some day when they want to know how their own children are growing in comparison. Plus, when I do a scrapbook, it is often about the picture, and a baby album often does not contain a lot of pictures. Instead, it includes a lot of memorabilia like the birth certificate, hospital bracelet, etc.
However, you can combine the two. If you choose not to do a baby album for your kids, it might be a good idea to pick one up some time and look through it to see what kind of information that you might be missing in your scrapbooks. Often, when we are scrapbooking, we get so caught up in the pictures, and telling the story of the picture, that we forget to mention things like, the date of when our children took their first steps.
One thing that I have found handy is to write things on a calendar the day they happen in my baby’s life. Then, later, I can just go back and refer to the calendar for the exact date of that first molar, or when they said their first word. I don’t have to worry that I’m going to forget by the time I write it down in my baby’s album. If the year ends, and I still haven’t had a chance to transfer the information into an album, then I simply hang on to the old calendar until I have a chance to do so.
A baby’s first year of life is definitely one of the most precious times. They grow and change so fast, and often, as a mother, you feel like it is slipping through your fingers. Hopefully through scrapbooking, keeping a baby album, or both, you can make sure that none of that important information you never want to forget will be cherished forever.
Meredith Ethington is the author of this blog. To learn more about Meredith, and her history with Scrapbooking and Genealogy, go here. < Return To Scrapbooking