First of all. You don't need to do any of this to be a "good parent".
The time and effort I used to create these things you could use and probably have used differently to engage with your child. So no pressure. The best memories aren't saved on a SD card or photo paper but in your heart anyway.
I am going to share what I did.
1. I wrote down her birth story
You see them everywhere these days. Instagram, youtube, blogs... Birth stories. And they are all beautiful.
When I was pregnant I was reading so many of them and listening to all the mamas sharing their experiences in videos for hours. Laughing, crying, remembering the pain, reminiscing about the joy... the first time they saw their babies and the first time they smelled their sweet smell.
Time, place... How did you go into labor? How long were you in labor for? Did you get medication?
These are probably the things easiest to remember... I also wanted to be able to tell our daughter all the little details about her birth.
I think the birth story written out on a nice piece of paper in an envelope can be a great addition to the baby's keepsake box of firsts.
I don't want to share my birth story online for privacy and intimacy reasons, even though I'm very comfortable sharing in a safe space (with family members, other moms.. etc.).
2. Footprints, handprints and all the firsts!
Very typical, but I still want to mention the keepsakes of a baby's first year.
We have a footprint from her first couple of hours earth side and one where she was a little older but still tiny! Plus the handprint.
We kept her little hospital bracelet and ankle bracelet, her coming-home outfit, her first pacifier, her first socks... it's all so tiny and precious.
3. Every day for a year...
I wrote down something about our baby girl every day for her entire first year of life.
Sometimes it was just a sentence and sometimes a whole paragraph. Not every day is filled with new achievements or milestones but if you try to be mindful you can pick out a little detail about each day and note it down.
4. Pictures and videos on my phone
This one is the most obvious one and I am sure that 99% of the parents these days take at least 5000 pictures (and hopefully videos too!) of their child with their phone in the first year. Honestly though, these pictures to me are more like raw material. I like flipping through them every once in a while (and cry a little bit) but what do we make out of them?
5. A keepsake photo album
I purchased a beige linen cover photo album with blank pages to fill it with pictures of my daughter's life.
I included pictures of my pregnancy photoshoots with my friend Jessi, some ultrasound pictures and lots of beautiful photos of my baby. Unfortunately the book I bought didn't even fit her first year's worth of photos! I only got to her 6th month and now it's full... Oops.
I used different photo printing services but my favorite one of all times is
Social Print Studio.
(This is in no way sponsored. I just love their products and want to spread some love.)
6. An analog photo album
"Analog film photography? Really?", you may ask yourself. Yeah! It's still a thing!
I'm definitely not a great photographer but I love the vintage feeling of analog photos. I take them with the camera my parents used to take baby pictures of me. It's an old Minolta camera and I love it dearly. I got a little separate photo album to store those special memories in. Look at these moments in our first days as a family on film.
7. Polaroid photos
Okay. Story time.
When I was growing up we didn't own a Polaroid camera, but they were often present at fairs we went to, where you could pay to get a Polaroid photo taken of you. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. With these memories in my head and hanging out on indie tumblr blogs too much, when I was 18 I searched the internet for a used Polaroid camera and I found one for super cheap. I think I paid 25 Euros with shipping. The problem was the films. At the time they were very rare and expensive (50 Euros per film on eBay...). So I never knew if my camera actually worked or not. Until Polaroid started selling them for much less again. I couldn't wait to receive them and try it out. When I did and found out it worked I literally had tears in my eyes from happiness! I am able to take precious Polaroid pictures of my daughter and she'll be able to look at them when she's older and say: "Umm... did you guys not have digital cameras when I was born?"
No, just kidding. I have no clue what she will say, but I don't need her to appreciate them as much as I do.
I used little transparent sticky corners to temporarily give them a home in her linen photo album, but I didn't want to glue them in because there's obviously only one of each photo. I might want to display them differently at some point and I don't want it to be a pain to get them out.
8. A (way too long) video compilation of her first year
As I mentioned before, the videos I took trough out the first year are more like raw material to me.
I knew I didn't want them to just be shared on messengers and sit in the cloud. All those short clips would not be fully appreciated that way. So I made a over 10 minute long video on iMovie. I would share it here, if it didn't invade my daughter's privacy. Let me tell you - it made people cry!
I used free video music from
free-stock-music.com and the song My little Girl by Jack Johnson as background music.
I can't wait to show her all these things when she's old enough to understand and appreciate them!
She'll probably never feel the same way about all this as I do though.
I hope you enjoyed reading about these ideas and maybe you even got inspired.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
Mery
