Reddit mentions: The best baby albums, frames & journals

So, I was originally going to use a Miquelrius 300 sheet grid lined notebook for my baby tracking book. My estimated due date is December 31, 2014, so I started at Dec. 15 in case babby is early. I finished drawing in the lines for December 15-31, 2014, got half way through January 2015 and gave up. =P Then I wanted to just buy one, but I couldn't find one that had the layout inside it that I wanted, had a nice cover that I liked, had pockets for loose paper and miscellaneous things, and had good quality paper, AND sold by a merchant that knows what CANADA is. >K{

I set about making my own. They're just simple 2-staple saddle-bound booklets that are 8.5x11 sheets folded in half, then trimmed.

I used Domtar brand 32lb/120gsm ColorPrint paper from Staples. I got it because it was a lower price than the HP reams, but it's not fountain pen friendly =P The sheets are nice and thick, and great for almost any other pens. But fountain pens bleed-through and feather wildly. Sharpie markers will give you bad ghosting and bleed-through, but that's somewhat expected for Sharpies.

Something funny I've noticed: fountain pen ink will get absorbed into the printed letters or lines. I printed grey gridlines onto my paper. If I write across several squares, the ink that crosses the gridlines will run along the lines like paint runs into grooved troughs. For reference, I have an Epson Artisan 810 printer. It might be Epson ink or inkjets in general, I don't know.

But anyway, I didn't want to waste what I already got so I'm just going to use this up. With a thick paper like this, one booklet per month was a more reasonable size. If I used Tomoe River paper, I may be able to do a year in one book and it might be a (more or less) sane sized book.

I did the content in Libre Office Calc. I set the column height and row width to 5mm for the entire sheet, set all the borders to a medium-light grey for the gridlines, then set the borders of the outline for the tables to black and entered the text I wanted. The layout is largely inspired by the Hobonichi Techo, this Baby Tracker book with lots of other different ideas from everywhere, but done my way =)

I couldn't figure out the "booklet" setting on my printer properties panel, so I just made everything double-sided, and manually brained it to make the calendar and daily layouts work when I folded 8.5x11 paper in half to form the booklet.

I could have sat there and figured out what I needed to pre-print the actual dates, but I thought it would be easy enough to put in the date on the fly.

The covers are two back-to-back sheets from a pad of 12x12" decorative scrapbooking paper from Michaels (the "Seasons" themed one) trimmed down to size. It's a thin 20 or 22lb smooth paper. I couldn't find cardstock with designs I liked. The Seasons paper pad had sheets with the names of all the 12 months, so each booklet would be auto-labelled already =)

I'm so sorry you are going through this. First, remember that you are doing what is best for your kids and family by getting healthy. Also, that even if your child is really upset now this isn't going to traumatize them for life. It may be hard but that isn't the same as you damaging them.

For the five year old, you can give her a calendar to mark off each day until you come back with one of the adults. Having a clear timeline and seeing when you will return and how far that is should help some. If she isn't good at using/understanding a calendar maybe go over that with her now and practice. You could also plan to video call her if you want, or just talk on the phone with no video (not sure if you'll look really sick and it might scare her?). Or have dad call.

Your 17 month old is the one I'm concerned this is going to be harder for since they may not really understand. Maybe for them make a book of pictures of you and dad with them (and without them?) that whoever is watching you can look through with them when they miss you. (They make soft short baby/young toddler photo albums with plastic sheaths like this, this, or this.) I'm not sure who verbal your child is but talk to them about this and how you will come back simply and repeatedly. Also, to make sure they understand coming back you could do this when you leave the room, go to the store, go to work, ect and be like "Mommy is going to leave for work and come back after nap time/in five minutes (whenever) to get you." Then "Mommy came back" when you come back so they know.

How much time do you have to prepare? Does your 17 month old have any words? We used baby sign with my daughter and at this age she'd sign for "daddy" often when he is at work and I'd reply "Daddy is at work" and sign "dad" and "work" and then say when he would be home. She'd start to sign "dad work" to herself sometimes so I think she got that idea, or at least that it meant he wasn't there. (Recently at 2.5 I learned she thought her dad's job is playing basketball since he also goes to do that once a week. lol. She also thought he left for work as soon as she went to bed since he was gone in the morning.) Anyway, having her have some way to ask about you and then having a comforting answer they can give planned out with them might be helpful. Also empathy. Never forget the "you miss Mommy and Daddy" type of things, without any concept that this is bad. As Daniel Tiger says "it's okay to be sad sometimes". So it's more like "you miss Mommy and Daddy. That's really hard. Do you want a hug? Do you want to look at your Mommy and Daddy book?"

I bought this one. I know you said no photos but every mom I spoke with told me they never took the time to write things down in baby books that asked for a lot of detail. This one has a picture + the same questions each month as well as a handful of other things. I have yet to print photos to put in it but I plan to print them all out before her first birthday to have at the party, that way I do it all at once. You might not be good a printing photos but you will surely take them of every occasion. I love the simplicity of answering favorites, dislikes, and new achievements every month. Just my two cents.

My MIL gave us this one. It's pricey but oh so cute!

For books to read to kids, I like Goodnight Moon and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (or anything by Dr Seuss). I also have abridged board book versions of Peter Rabbit which I like. Little Golden books, like The Pokey Little Puppy are good too.

I got this one on Amazon which I love. At 3 weeks out, I haven’t put anything in it yet haha. But the quality is nice!

I have this one from RubyRoo for my son and have really liked it thus far. We're 11 Months in and I've finally gotten about 90% caught up with photos and blurbs and everything (it's so much harder than I thought it would be!!!).

There are several more like this on Amazon from this and different publishers. I like the Lucy Darlings like this whale one, this elephant one, and this flower one or this flower one as well.

ETA - OMG I just found these and I'm a sucker for unicorns - how stinking cute I mean come ON.

I keep trying to post this as a separate post, but for some reason it won't show up when I do. So I'll just post it here instead:

So when going through lists of things for our hospital bag, I came across the suggestion of a Baby Book so you can get your baby's footprints right in the book at the hospital. That reminded me that I wanted to have some kind of book or scrapbook of at least my baby's first year, since I am terrible at documenting stuff like this! I've been looking around online at a few, but it can be really hard to decide.

Basically, I know I need to pick up a pre-made one that I'll just fill in the blanks. I am a terrible scrapbooker (I've tried in the past, it just doesn't come naturally to me), so I need as much guidance as I can get. I also don't like to write a ton, so I'd prefer one that is mainly focused on pictures and just little tidbits about milestones and stuff, rather than big pages to write a lot of text.

These are the ones I've found so far that I like: 1 2 3

What do you guys think? Are any of you planning on getting a Baby Book for your little one? Have you already bought one? And if you have, (or have looked through some others) how did you decide?

Also, as a side tip: I found this little journal for documenting your child's medical past (vaccinations, past illnesses, etc.) while I was looking at Baby Books on Amazon. I thought it was a really great idea to have all of that in one place, so I think I'm at least going to pick up that one :)

I bought the All About Me Baby Book And love it so much! Modern typography and graphics. Very easy to use. I've just added a few pages in between to be able to write more if I want.

Here's one I got at my shower that I really like! I haven't started filling it out, but I leafed through it and it looks great! http://www.amazon.com/C-R-Gibson-Bound-Keepsake-Memory/dp/B001AL7GOQ/ref=br_it_dp_o_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2NRR6KUK9KNXP&coliid=I3TDP9IXLKJE0Q

We got this one on Amazon and I really like it. Not too overwhelming and it was fun to work on it with the hubs.

Baby book

I got this one. It has space for the big stuff without a ton of random fluff (I’m not really a scrapbook-y person either, and wanted something not too cutesy). I really like the formatting, and the price is reasonable.

Lucy Darling Baby's First Year Memory Book: A Simple Book of Firsts - Little Captain https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F4L2O62/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_kAHDAb2QEPMQV

The company cr Gibson also sells baby books like this. We sold them in a boutique I worked for but a quick Google search shows they sell them everywhere.

Also I found this on Amazon and I am getting this in addition to the traditional first 5 years baby book.

Promptly Journals - Childhood History Journal (Navy) - Keepsake Baby Book, Records Every Stage of Life, Pregnancy Thru Age 18, Elegant Unisex Design for Boy or Girl https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079Q81LN9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_nO7XBbR860Q9T

I have this one and it’s gorgeous! And simple. It doesn’t ask a lot of frivolous info and has lots of room for pictures.

I have a baby book by C.R. Gibson and I love it. It has memory spaces/photo slots for the first 12 months, and then for every year up to 5 years. There are pages for vacation memories, holidays, immunizations, doctor visits, height and weight, a tooth chart (just like you described) etc. Mine did not have a memory pocket, but I taped an envelope with the haircuttings in the book.
Amazon carries several; I’ve also seen them at Buy Buy Baby and Kohl’s. Or you can shop C.R. Gibson directly.

I like the “experience” ideas. What about getting a baby book and sitting together and filling out stuff like “how Mommy and Daddy met.”

Pearhead Chevron Baby Book with Clean-Touch Ink Pad Included, Gray https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TQ84AEE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9rs6AbKA34JKD

Not preg, but I bought this one in the past! It only has a few pages where it references "parents" but nothing actively referencing a "dad." Hope this helps!

Amazon link for those interested:
http://smile.amazon.com/C-R-Gibson-Memory-Book-Made/dp/B00HWIWRSQ?ie=UTF8&qid=1421784913&sr=8-5&keywords=baby+book

We have this one: C.R. Gibson First 5 Years Memory Book, Record Memories and Milestones on 64 Beautifully Illustrated Pages - Linen Tree https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BA26PZU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_bSEDAbXNPXB5Z

I like it - enough pages that it feels substantive but not so many that it's overwhelming.

I bought this one and i like it. It has space for everything you mentioned plus extra pages for whatever else you want to include.

I used this inkless stamp set, which worked really well for my dog's paw print.

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https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Touch-Baby-Handprints-Footprints/dp/B07C5R69KK/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=22ZRFZVEUSCO2&keywords=footprint%2Binkless%2Bpad&qid=1557199279&refinements=p_72%3A2661618011&rnid=2661617011&s=gateway&sprefix=footprint%2B%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-1-spons&th=1

I always recommend this notebook to any new moms or soon-to-be new moms that I bump into for this very reason. It takes less time to put a quick symbol on paper than it does to unlock my phone or try to write down the actual time. Has a place to jot down notes, to-dos, etc. too.