If you're like some parents, you started your child's first year with big ambitions to create a gorgeous baby book. And now… a half-finished book is hiding in a drawer. Not every parent's first year with a baby is conducive to finishing a book on the timeline they expected. You aren't alone – or a bad parent – if you fell behind on your big baby book plans. The good news is that it's not too late to create the custom baby book you dreamed of. Photographer and mom Erin Nti-Addae shares her journey to a custom baby book (almost three years after her son's birth!) and tips for completing yours.
Erin's Journey to Her Custom Baby Book
The Baby Notebook team met Erin during our pre-launch of the Baby Notebook app. We fell in love with her photography. We even had her do a takeover of Baby Notebook's Instagram account, which provided photography tips for parents like you! You can still view her takeover on our highlights here.
Once we launched the Baby Notebook app, Erin got to work creating her custom baby book. But things didn't go quite as planned. Here's how she described her experience the first time around (Remember she was one of our first customers, and our app wasn't nearly as flexible as it is today.):
“I had every intention of dropping in a few pictures and writing down a few words in my Baby Notebook App a couple times every month when my son was born. But somehow, the busy days got the best of me and I found myself getting farther and farther behind in the book.”
As Erin's son's third birthday approached, she started thinking about his custom baby book again. “I really started to regret not having all those sweet memories from his first year. And in my determination to create something for both me and him to look back on, I decided to get as creative as I could with all of the customizations the App has to offer, and whipped up a special little book to surprise him with!”
Learn more about the Baby Notebook app here!
How to Complete Your Custom Baby Book
We chatted with Erin to get her insights on finishing your custom baby book - even if your baby isn't a baby anymore!
1. What changes did you make to Baby Notebook's template to create a custom baby book?
Erin: I kept the family tree and some of the newborn text pages since I could fill those out. However, since I didn't write down other milestones and text, I decided to swap those pages out with more pictures.
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Subscribers have the option to hide, replace, and add pages to tailor their book to their family's story.
2. We love the colorful quote pages that you added throughout the book. What quotes did you choose to add to your custom baby book?
Erin: I love the fun style of all those specialty pages that Baby Notebook has to offer.. So in order to bring those colors and that “Baby Notebook” feel back into my book, I added some quotes on a variety of colorful quote pages. I chose little sayings or songs that made me think of him and scattered them throughout the pages.
Some examples of quotes I used throughout the book:
"Better together"
This one came from a felt pendant I got while I was pregnant with Alden. I bought it to hang in their play areas because one of my hopes is that they would have a strong sibling bond and feel like they truly were better together.
"Love you more than all the stars in the sky"
This is a play on one of their favorite shows to watch, Guess How Much I Love You, where they are describing how much they love each other in fun analogies to the world around them.
"It's Merry & Bright with you here"
This seemed like a fitting quote to use around some of the Christmas pictures I included.
"Oh, the places you'll go"
The famous Dr. Seuss quote. I love these little years, but I am just as excited to watch him grow and see what he can do in the world!
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Use Baby Notebook's colorful quote pages, found in our ‘Text Only' page group, to add your favorite sayings to your custom baby book.
3. How did you customize your monthly chapters?
Erin: I actually had taken a milestone picture each month. I used those as my introduction to each month's worth of pictures in the book, along with the month typed out. I replaced the journaling pages with more photos. Then, I just filled out as many pages for each month with pictures I had on my phone.
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Use our copy and paste feature to quickly paste photos into the Baby Notebook app instead of scrolling through all your photos each time you upload. Learn how to copy and paste from the Photos app here. Learn how to copy and paste from Google Photos here.
4. Were there any chapters in particular that you expanded on?
Erin: Some months I had many photos, and some, I had only a couple. I didn't try to make each chapter even. I did add a little text under a couple of pictures, i.e. special trip to the Grandparents for the holidays and explaining how his big sister was smitten with him or just how we felt waiting for his arrival and his little personality when we got to meet him. The Pregnancy, Newborn, and first month or two have the most text in them. Adding in and removing the text box on the pages according to my needs was easy to do.
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
In our ‘Photos + Text' page group you'll find page layouts that include space for captions, so you can tell the story behind the photos.
5. What was your secret to completing your baby book so fast?
Erin: I went chapter by chapter, changing the journaling pages to photo pages and just dropping in my pictures. I tried to mix up the page layouts to make it interesting. All of my photos were still on my phone, so I just scrolled back in my camera roll and checked the date on the pictures to make sure I was plugging them into the correct chapter. Once I got the rhythm down, it actually went so quickly! I was so embarrassed that I hadn't done it sooner!
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Keep your pregnancy photos organized by using our beautiful pregnancy cards to mark your milestones. Download your free deck of 26 cards!
6. What titles did you edit or customize?
Erin: I customized the book title to “Alden James.” I changed the “Welcome Baby!” title to “Welcome Alden,” and I changed the title page from ‘The Story of Baby' to "Our first year with you...." I went back and forth using "you" or "Alden" and ultimately went with "you".
For the months, I also changed it to numerics rather than being written out. For example, instead of “One month old” I changed it to “1 month old.”
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Here are some additional titles you can edit to include your baby's name.
- Change ‘A letter to you' to ‘A letter to [Baby's name]'
- Change ‘You've arrived…' to ‘[Baby's full name]'
- Change ‘Your name' to ‘[Baby's full name]'
- Change ‘How big is baby?' to ‘How big is [Baby's name]?'
7. Is there a favorite page layout that you consistently added throughout your book?
Erin: The full photo page layout and the group of three photos layouts were my favorite to use. Something about those two just feels so luxurious and classic to me when I think of a photo album. I loved being able to feature my very favorite “good” pictures in the large layouts and then fill in my “everyday” pictures in the smaller image layouts.
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Use a variety of page layouts to give your custom baby book a one-of-a-kind feel.
8. Did you feel like you were able to customize your baby book to match your style/ aesthetic?
Erin: I really wanted something that would feel classic over the years and that he would enjoy looking through even as an adult, but still fun. And I feel like Baby Notebook offered just what I was looking for!
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
You're creating a new heirloom. Include stories and photos that you want to pass on to future generations of your family.
9. What have you experienced with your kiddos since printing Alden's custom baby book?
Erin: He is so proud of his book. It is always getting pulled off the shelf to be looked at, and the kids will sit there together, pointing and smiling over the pages.
💡Baby Notebook Pro Tip💡
Our custom baby book is the first book to a collection of books you can create with the Baby Notebook app. Continue to document your child as they grow with Baby Notebook's Toddler book, Magic Years book, and Family Yearbook.
Erin's story is proof that it's never too late to finish your custom baby book! The Baby Notebook app can support you in creating a truly unique keepsake for your child's first year.
Download the Baby Notebook app and start building your custom baby book today!
Thanks to Erin Nti-Addae for sharing these beautiful photos of her son's baby book.