A Traditional Baby Book...To Buy or Not to Buy?

Just because it's on most people's registries, does that mean it's a necessity?

     I'll admit it, a cute blue baby book was on my registry.  I didn't just search Amazon for the best reviewed one either, I actually went to a brick and mortar store and looked for the one that "spoke" to me.  I thought it was very important.  This was going to be an item that my future son would look at years down the road and feel honored that I took the time to write in it.  Well, at least that was the hope, right?

     To be honest, I definitely haven't written in it nearly as often as I had hoped.  In fact, a lot of the information in there is transcribed from my iPhone, something that's always on me.  I had "write in baby book" on my To-Do list for weeks (well, the mental list that is).  Once I finally wrote in it, I realized how many more things I wasn't able to fill in and actually started to feel badly about it.  In addition, there were quite a few pages that were made just for photos to be placed in there.  The problem is, I can't remember the last time I got any photos printed. Perhaps it was before I had a digital camera, around the turn of the millennium.

     But when it came time to plan his first birthday party, I decided I wanted to do a photo guest book, similar to the one I made for my wedding. I had a coupon code for Shutterfly, so why not use it? I quickly realized that there really wasn't a template for a "Baby's First Birthday Guestbook," but there was a "Baby Book," in fact, quite a few of them.  So I decided to make a sort of hybrid--a Guestbook that doubled as a "Year of Xander."  I used a lot of their "stickers" and put in a lot of information from my actual "Baby Book" (transcribed a lot of information once again). And I could actually use the photos I had taken throughout the year and put them into context AND I didn't have to follow any formatted style. The best part, however, was that I was able to copy and paste all of the text that I had typed into my phone during the course of the first year with dates of all his milestones to fill the last two pages of the book.  

Long story short, I now have a book with pictures that can't fall out or fade (hopefully), as well as wishes from guests at his first birthday, along with a ton of pictures and text telling the story of my son's first year of life.  The only thing is there isn't a page to attach some of his locks from his first haircut or his hospital bracelet.  I think I'll just tape those to the page that has the Shutterfly logo, I'm sure my son won't mind.

Will I still take the time to fill out his baby book that goes up to his third year? Possibly. Will I feel badly when I let it lapse? Probably not.  I'll just refer to it for my note taking on my iPhone to make another Shutterfly book and for suggestions of questions when filming my #Videobabybooks.   I guess that makes it a worthwhile investment. For everyone else, just check out a traditional baby book online or in a brick and mortar store and use it as inspiration to keep notes to make your very own, and much more personal, baby book. I think your child will appreciate it even more.