Our favorite memory book ideas are the ones that help you tell the whole story of your child's first year - big milestones, little moments and details unique to your family. At the end of the day, you want to commemorate your child's first year with a creative and beautiful book. Baby Notebook gives you a beautiful pre-formatted layout that offers the flexibility to replace or add pages tailored to your family, ensuring your memory book becomes one you'll adore.
7 Memory Book Ideas for Baby's First Year
Here are seven of our favorite memory book ideas to tell your baby's story in a way that's beautiful and unique to your family.
1. Start with a title.
Baby Notebook's titles throughout the app are all editable, but the book title is the most important. Titles set the tone for the story you'll tell. Was your first year together full of funny lessons learned? Was it beautiful chaos? Our guess is it's a bit of both.
Think about how you want your child to feel when they pick the book up someday, too. The memory book cover alone can be like a hug, an assurance of just how special they are to you. Take a little time to pick a title that says how you really feel.
These titles are simple and sweet:
- The Story of [Baby's Name]
- A Year with [Baby's Name]
- [Baby's] First Adventures
- A Year of Firsts
- When We Met You
- The Story of You
2. Include the prequel.
Your baby's story starts before they're born. When you're putting together your memory book ideas, don't forget to tell that piece of the story! That “before there was you” section in the ‘Home' chapter can be so special for kids to get a glimpse into your world before they came along and changed it forever. It's also the perfect place to organize any baby prep photos.
3. Take photos that feel like your family.
Your memory book will include different kinds of memory keeping, but the most important will be photos. It's easy to get caught up in what baby book photos are “supposed to look like.” In our experience, the photos you'll love the most are the ones that feel true to your family. They'll be the cozy moments in the sunny nursery and the whole-family couch snuggles.
For your memory book, try taking a lifestyle photography approach. You focus more on storytelling than getting everyone posed to perfection. (Who wants to put themselves through that with an infant, right?) Set up in the places you spend the most time with the people who matter most. You're bound to capture some amazing moments even if you're not a pro photographer.
Are you thinking ahead to newborn photos? Learn how to take newborn photos that are authentic to your family!
4. Tell stories about the little moments, not just the big milestones.
On the other side of the memory book ideas, you'll find writing prompts. A lot of baby books, including Baby Notebook, include helpful prompts for milestones. You'll be so glad you remember all those firsts.
It can mean just as much to tell the stories of the little moments, though. Use Baby Notebook's monthly journaling pages to describe the way your baby's laugh sounds. Tell your child how it feels when they nuzzle you and bring your heart rate somewhere close to normal again during a 2 a.m. wakeup. These little things mean so much, and they're so fleeting.
5. Add quotes that put words to those warm fuzzy feelings.
You may find yourself wanting to include quotes in your baby's book. Maybe a friend gave you some words of wisdom or you heard a famous quote that made you say, “That's exactly how I feel.” Make sure your memory book gives you the option to include those.
Baby Notebook has some beautiful colored quote pages that you can add to your book. We can imagine families adding sweet quotes such as “For all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you.” Wouldn't that make a great addition to your child's story?
6. Create a timeless memory book with a minimalist aesthetic.
We've found that a lot of the best memory book ideas help you create a timeless heirloom. That's the whole point of baby books after all - to commemorate this ephemeral season in your family's life for generations to come. Unfortunately, it's easy for a memory book to become full of disorganized stuff. Baby Notebook helps you capture all the memories you'll treasure in a modern, high-quality book that you'll be proud to have on your coffee table (and not stashed on a shelf out of reach from little hands).
For more ideas along these lines, read our blog post Making a Modern Baby Memory Book!
7. Keep it simple with an app designed for busy parents.
All these memory book ideas don't do you a lot of good if you're too busy to sit down and put a baby book together. We designed Baby Notebook for busy parents. The weekly notifications prompt you to upload photos and fill in your baby's stories in just a few minutes a week. By the end of your baby's first year, you'll have a complete baby book ready to be printed!
Download the Baby Notebook app!
Thank you to Erin Nti-Addae for these sweet images of her Baby Notebook.