Baby Books

[GGT]

Mine is pretty empty because I was the third child in five years. It has the newspaper birth announcement, the engraved announcement card with a lock of my hair tied in a pink ribbon, my foot prints from the hospital form (for baby books), and a few hand-written notes from my mother. It didn't last too long, but it's fun to look at. First big word (elephant), favorite things (my thumb, my sisters, and my Pooh Bear), favorite foods (whatever the adults were eating), phobias (alone in the dark, the sparkly butterfly popper on a handle my sisters would tease me with), what made me cry (my sisters or a dirty diaper)....and most firsts. Talking, walking, tooth eruption, vaccinations. Then there was a yellowed newspaper recipe for something, and it ended. Before pre-school.

My kids' baby books are pretty bare. Started out really well, but then I got lazy by putting things on video. VHS video, the old kind. Lots and lots of VHS cassettes, and notes on calendars. Very few things were actually entered in their Baby Book proper. It was "a project I'd work on one of these days". I have loads of labeled pictures on Kodak paper, photos in books, locks of their hair and all their baby teeth (hmpf), but no real Baby Book.

Do you have a Baby Book? What's it look like? Are you happy with it, or a bit disappointed? *If you don't have one, do you wish you did? What would you like it to look like or show you?* What do the "new" Baby Archives look like, with all the digital photos and recordings available?

The new parents here post their baby pictures on-line, it makes me wonder what they save, do they save everything, and.....is there a written record of baby's personality....or just jpgs?


Edit: My parents' Baby Books are mostly photo albums, from the late 20's and early 30's, with some hand-written things. Padded silk covers that say "Baby" on the front. Beautiful cursive from ink pens. I have no idea when Baby Books became a thing of their own, but guessing Baby Boomers started it?

[termite]

We have an album for each of our kids with various stuff from when they were babies.

Newspaper article including a photo, the band from the hospital with their details on it, the plastic clip from their belly button (its ok we washed it!), heaps of photo's and a birth certificate extract. The kids albums are full - mostly with pictures up until about 2 years old.

Most photo's from the last 6-8 years are digital, some of which have been printed and most of which will never be printed.

[GGT]

You sound very organized.

And what of your Baby Book, termite?

the band from the hospital with their details on it

You mean the plastic ID bands with the metal clips, that had to be cut off at discharge, after they matched the mom's with the babe's. Big surprise, hospitals didn't have plastic covered type-set available, in the old days. They used to manually thread tiny alphabet beads in a macrame type of bracelet and tie it to the infant's foot or hand. The strings fell apart over time, but our mom had the beads re-created years later as adult bracelets, and gave them as gifts.

[termite]

You sound very organized.

And what of your Baby Book, termite?

Um, I'd have to ask my mother about that - I know there is an album but can't say I recall much about it other than embarrassing photo's.

You mean the plastic ID bands with the metal clips, that had to be cut off at discharge, after they matched the mom's with the babe's. Big surprise, hospitals didn't have plastic covered type-set available, in the old days. They used to manually thread tiny alphabet beads in a macrame type of bracelet and tie it to the infant's foot or hand. The strings fell apart over time, but our mom had the beads re-created years later as adult bracelets, and gave them as gifts.

Yeah, our kids had the plastic anklet with their name, DOB, WAB and mothers name. Never heard of the beeds before - I'm sure now they'd be deemed "Not suitable for children" on the grounds that they're a chocking hazard!!!

[Ominous Gamer]

I've got a box for each kid. Never saw the point in a book, feels to scrapebookish, which I'm not a fan of.

Boxes hold more, and in that once in a blue moon time when they get dug through, its like a treasure chest being opened for the first time.
They have first shoes, projects, pictures, all kinds of random crap that wouldn't fit in a book, but was still important enough to have meaning.

[Catgrrl]

The baby books my parents have for us kids are mostly just photo albums, but my mother did keep all of our baby teeth, umbilical cords, first locks of hair cute, etc. in a box.

I'm trying my best to keep up with baby girl's, but I'm already having trouble remembering things like specific dates for milestones during pregnancy. Lucky I was able to figure some of it out based on Facebook posts, LOL. There is quite a bit of hard drive space dedicated to pictures we have taken of her between our two computers and the server.