Newborn memory book: what to record each month
Give each of the first twelve months one page with the same fields: measurements, feeding, sleep, dated firsts, visitors and one photo. Fill it from notes kept on your phone.
A newborn memory book is a record more than an album. Its value is in detail you will have lost in two years: the date of a first smile, who came in week one, what settled them at night.
Leave the book itself shut for the first weeks. Keep one running list on your phone and copy it across once a month, when you have an hour.
Make the memory book together
Invite people to send photos and their own words, then choose what goes in the book.
Questions for grandparents and visitors
- When did you first meet the baby, and where?
- What did you notice about them that day?
- Who do you think they look like, and in what way?
- What did you bring or make for them?
- What do you remember about the parents in that first week?
- What was the parent like as a baby, if you knew them then?
- What was going on in the world that week?
- What did babies wear, eat or sleep in when you were a new parent?
- What would you like to do with them when they are older?
The same fields on every monthly page
Identical headings each month make the year easy to compare later, and mean nobody has to decide what to write while short of sleep.
- Weight and length, with the date each was measured
- Feeding: breast, bottle or both, roughly how often, first solid foods
- Sleep: where they slept and the longest stretch you remember
- Firsts with dates: smile, laugh, rolling, a tooth, sitting up
- Visitors and outings, with names
- One photograph taken in the same spot each month
Copy the numbers from the red book
In the UK the NHS records a baby's growth on centile charts in the personal child health record, known as the red book. Copy weights from there, not from memory.
The NHS says to weigh no more than once a month up to six months, then no more than every two months to twelve months. Where a month has no new weight, carry the last one forward with its date.
Hospital letters, NHS numbers and test results stay in the red book or a folder, not in the keepsake.
Keeping it going on little sleep
Lower the bar rather than catching up. If two months go missing, start again at the current month and fill the gap later, or not at all.
- Pin a phone note named after the month and add a line when something happens
- Let photo timestamps date things: a picture of the first spoonful dates first solids
- Hand a whole month to a partner or grandparent to write
- Fill the page on the same date each month, such as the day of the month they were born
Pages written by grandparents and visitors
Visitors notice things parents miss. A grandparent may also remember the parent at the same age, which makes a good facing page.
Leave cards and a pen by the front door for the first month, and send the questions below to anyone who lives far away. File each answer under the month they visited.
Pages to make
Birth to four weeks
The hospital band photographed flat, the first outfit, cards from the first visitors, and the birth weight with the time and place.
Months two to eleven
One page a month, each with a photo taken in the same chair or cot corner, so the change in size shows without a ruler.
The grandparents' page
A grandparent's own answers beside a photo of them holding the baby and, if there is one, a photo of the parent as a baby.
First birthday
The twelve monthly photos as a grid, the final weight and length, and a photo from the birthday itself.
Questions
When should I start a newborn memory book?
Start the phone notes on the day of birth. Begin the book itself once you have a spare hour; the notes hold the dates until then.
What if I missed the first few months?
Rebuild what you can from photo dates, messages and the red book, and mark uncertain dates with 'about'. Then carry on from the current month.
Is a baby memory book the same as a baby scrapbook?
A memory book is mostly a written record under fixed headings. A scrapbook is led by photos and keepsakes. You can keep both, one for facts and one for pictures.