Before my son was born, I bought him a baby book. I didn’t think much of it other than I liked it because it was Woodland themed like his nursery. I knew that my mom had baby books for my brother and me, and I liked the idea of keeping track of my baby’s milestones. It is something I can look back on for years to come and even he will read it one day.

The baby book I bought for my son.

While my son was in the NICU, I started filling out the pages. Everything from my baby shower, news from the day he was born, all about his family and his first days. The book even had a page to record memories of a ceremony, such as his bris.

Every month my husband and I would sit down and fill out the page of what baby could do, what baby likes, etc. Well some months, we had to do two pages at a time because we had waited too long. It got to be somewhat of a chore to record the page each month, especially because it was always the same questions. A lot of times nothing had changed in a certain area and I’d just write, “Same as last month.”

A sample of one of the memory book pages.

Also, his monthly pictures got to be a chore as well. From picking out the outfit to the stress of trying to take the perfect picture, but I’m glad I have them. I took them on the exact monthly birthday each time. When he got older, a new challenge arose of trying to get him to sit still for a photo. Now, I’m lucky if the picture isn’t blurry because my son never stops moving and is always on the go.

After each doctor’s appointment, I would record his weight, his height, and his immunizations in his baby book. There is also a page to record his teeth coming in and pages with various other milestones. The book goes up to age five, with the focus on the baby’s first year. I like the idea of recording memories of my child because we so easily forget the little things. There are plenty of spaces to add photos to the baby book and I was very diligent on putting photos in for his first seven months. After that, life got busy and I stopping getting photos printed and adding them to his baby book. I’ll have to update the book with recent photos soon.

Somewhere along the way, after my son was born I wanted to his record milestones as they happened. When he was about five months old, I began to record them in my Passion Planner. There is a space called “good things that happened” in each weekly spread. I shifted the focus of that from myself to my son. It was a good way to remember things to record in the baby book and to have another record of it. Later on, I started recording them on a list app on my phone and then would transfer the milestone later to my planner and then to the baby book. It can seem like an inefficient system, but it worked for me in my daily life. If I thought of something, I could just type it on my phone instead of finding the planner or the baby book. I used to delete the list on my phone once I recorded it elsewhere, but now I like to keep an ongoing list because it tells you the exact day I recorded it. That’s how I know my son started walking on September 25, 2019! I record the simplest things to the biggest, such as when he found his feet to new words he learned. Some of his achievements that I recorded are not what you would call a traditional milestone, but it is something I want to remember. My son was born premature, so he hit his milestones a little later than most children, but every child is different and does things at different times.

Having lists in different places can be confusing. Because I want to have everything in one place, I decided to make a list of each month and each year and everything he did that month that I felt the need to record. I started this list using all three sources, and so far have only recorded the month of January 2019. But, I’ll finish it eventually and one day I will be so glad I did. Probably when he gets curious about the baby book or when he has children someday and wants to know what he did and when to compare.

When I have another child one day, I probably won’t be this disciplined with keeping track of milestones. With the challenges of taking care of two children, I probably will barely use the next child’s baby book. That is how it turned out for my mom. She spent so much time making my brother’s baby book, cutting out shapes out of wrapping paper and gluing them in because stickers and scrapbooking weren’t as common. Now there are so many memory-making options out there and even online photo books and digital scrapbooking.

When it got time for my baby book, my mom filled out the beginning but didn’t finish it. I don’t blame her; she was keeping up with two children. There is a list in the back of the baby book of my milestones that were never transferred. My mom kept my baby bracelet from the hospital and my first lock of hair. I’m so glad the memories are recorded and that’s probably where I got the idea to keep up with my son’s baby book.  I have always loved scrapbooking and plan to make a scrapbook of my son one day. I do the traditional scrapbooking with paper and stickers. I’m still working on scrapbooking my honeymoon from six years ago, but you know I’ve made some progress.

I hope one day, my son and even my grandchildren will appreciate the effort I took to preserve these milestone memories. Are you recording memories of your children? It’s never too late to start!

A page from my son’s baby book.