Welcome to my new series here on Days of A Wife called Memory Keeping Mom! I’ve always been the nostalgic type (I used to scrapbook but I don’t have the time or space for it anymore!), so when I had my twin boys, I set out on a journey to find the best ways to maintain our family memories! So many times you hear of moms that started a baby book and never finished, or moms that find their kids old stuff in old boxes years down the road. I was passionate that I wanted to make a conscious effort to avoid these busy mom pitfalls and make our family memories accessible, easy, and beautiful! I have searched for the best ways to do so and will be sharing them with you as I go along with recording them! Today I wanted to start with one that most moms do entertain the idea of…baby books or a baby box!
Quick note before we dive in, if this is not something you are passionate about or choose to do, that is totally OK! As moms we have a limited amount of time in the day and we each get to decide how we use it. What is important to one mom, isn’t to other moms, but hopefully this will be helpful to those moms that feel like me!
Alright, let’s jump in!
BABY BOXES
Some moms chose to do a baby book to record milestones, or a baby box to save precious mementos or some do both! We decided to do both for our twin boys but we did a slightly different twist.
Our boys were both in the NICU for an extended length of time. You can check out our NICU story here if you haven’t heard it before. Any other NICU mamas out there know that a NICU stay will provide you with many extra mementos compared to your typical hospital stay. I’m talking arts and crafts projects, different size diapers, blood pressure cuffs, tiny hats, etc. It feels weird to think about throwing them away, so instead we decided to make them each a “NICU Baby Box.”
We got these beautiful boxes custom made (and relatively affordably surprisingly!) off of Etsy. They are the perfect size to store all your baby memories!
Not a NICU baby? No problem! Here are some ideas of items that you can store in a baby box:
-going home outfit
-newborn diaper
-foot & hand prints
-baby dedication/baptism certificate/bible
-ultrasound pictures
-pregancy test
-umbilical cord stump
-hospital wristbands
– birth stat card
-milestone card
-baby socks or shoes
-baby hat from hospital
-special swaddle
-lock of hair from first hair cut
-pacifier
-babies lovey
-newspaper from the day they were born
– polaroid pictures from pregnancy & baby days
Or really anything else that is special to you and your baby!
BABY BOOKS
There are a plethora of baby books to choose from! And so many of them are absolutely beautiful! However, I did not want to fall of the bandwagon with filling out my twin boys’ books, so I looked for the easiest baby book (and aesthetically pleasing) I could find and I ended up with The Short Years.
The Shorts Years is unique because you can make it all from an app on your phone! You start out by purchasing the binder book and dividers. Then you make your chapters on the app! It is user friendly, multiples friendly (you can be working on more than one kid’s book at a time!), adoption friendly, aesthetically beautiful, and quick! It simply asks you a few questions about each month (it will even send you reminder notifications if you want it to) and has places to upload your favorite pictures from the month. Then, once you finish three sections, they send you three chapters for you book in the mail for free!
The chapters include: Family, Waiting For You, Hello, World, Milestones, Home Sweet Home, Newborn, All the months 1-12, First Birthday, & Bonus Photos.
The details on the book are absolutely gorgeous!
One other awesome feature is the keepsake envelope at the back!
Also, after you get past the first year, you can upgrade to the toddler years to record more of your kids in the years of 12 months-4 years old! (We did this!)
Did you decide to do a baby box, a baby book, or something different for your littles?
-Kasey
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