Suggestions for making memories of/for your children

[pinkwhistle]

Maybe this has been done before but I thought it would be lovely to collect ways of making memories of or for your children. Some parents make hand/footprints or moulds but there are heaps of things you can do as they grow.

These are my ideas - they are all to do with photos but I'm sure others will have different ideas:

Take a photo of your newborn child next to a large stuffed toy. Then continue to take a picture with the same toy every birthday.

Take a photo on the same day of the month (birthdate probably easiest to remember) everymonth_ for the first year. On your child's first birthday you will have a record in photos of their first year. If you find a frame with 12 small spaces you can display them.

Take a photo every birthday of your child wearing an item of clothing of yours or your dp that you no longer wear. A girl might wear an old dress and a boy an old shirt or t-shirt. It will be huge of course at first but it is wonderful to see how they grow into it! It can become part of birthday tradition to pose for the photo!

Oh last thought - keep a height chart! It is such a small thing but we all love looking at how dd and ds have grown over the years. Great to see when the growth spurts happen too! (You know you weren't imagining it - and why the food bill went up!)

[Newbarnsleygirl]

They're really nice ideas pinkwhistle.
I like the idea of taking one every month. I had started to worry slightly as we've got loads of pictures of dd and since her 1st birthday in October the battery in our camera had gone and we still haven't replaced it.
DD has grown sooo much since!

[SueW]

My friend sells photo frames designed fo this sort of thing. See here .

DD is now 8yo and we were looking at her red book just this weekend - it's fantastic to see how she's grown and she loves lookin back over it.

[Fastasleep]

Ooh lockets what a gorgeous name! I would be naming my next one that if it was a girl.....but my son's called Theo!! Lol (totally off topic teehee) ... we do the monthly photos and I'm writing a mini saga of firsts to give to him when he's older lol 'you started smiling at...' etc, like the red book except I get to babble more

[Fastasleep]

Would be odd if they were the same age! Mine's 1 on the 18th of Feb, I guess Thea is older though

[poppy2133]

Re the 12 photos for baby's first year we got a lovely frame from A1gifts.co.uk - follow link to Baby - then My First year frame.

[Tommy]

Something I've started, on the suggestion of a friend who did it for hers, is writing down the funny things they say as you will never remember otherwise! I have a little book especially for this. My friend's children are now teenagers and older and they love reading through the books and laughing at the things they said when they were toddlers.

[Millie1]

Great ideas ... I'm trying to do an annual scrapbook but dating it from their birthday each year - things like painting/drawing/sticking etc, hand & foot prints (at the beginning of the book and on the last page too so they can look back and see how their hands and feet have grown over the year), birthday party invitations, some photos, even school reports when the time comes. Got to be honest though, for DS1 his first scrapbook covered 1-3 (he had his baby book for 0-1) and now we'll do one for 3-4 yrs etc.

[TwoIfBySea]

I have kept a memory box since ds twins were born. There are their hospital wrist and ankle bands, all the cards we recieved as well as scraps of the paper that presents were wrapped in. Their first baby sleepsuits, size premmie! their first little booties, first proper shoes, favourite baby cardies knitted by a family friend. All birthday cards and special cards. Paintings, drawings and things they have made. Footprints and hand prints.

We will be shortly needing a bigger box as since they started nursery there are a lot more things to add! I always date things and write special messages on things for them to piece together their early life.

I also put t-shirts they wore age 3-6 months on two toy puppies a friend gave them when they were born. So they will see the t-shirts on them in photos and then the t-shirts on their toys.

[HunkerMunker]

We have a box for DS which has photos, clothes, hospital ID bracelets, etc - but also the newspaper from the day he was born, the number one single from that day, a selection of the junk mail we got that week (it's junk now, but will be interesting in decades time!), a coin presentation set from the Royal Mint (you can buy them on their website) of freshly-minted 2004 coins, all kinds of things, really. Has all the cards we received when he was born and will have his first lock of hair (when I get it cut for the first time).

We had Imprints of his feet done - they're on the wall in the nursery.

I also write in a book his firsts or just days when he's really happy or finds something particularly amusing - he once laughed all day at the word 'genuinely' (even in his sleep!). It's a book that hasn't got specific spaces for x, y and z things, more a jotter, but a baby one - I don't like the ones with lots of spaces for very specific things!

I also keep a diary of what we did each day - just brief notes really. 2004's went in his box, this year's will too.

It's a wonder I have any time left to do things to have memories of with all that

[alexsmum]

i did so many things like this for ds1.thousands of photos,hours of video,writing everything down.Now ds2 is around,i do so little of it because life is so busy and chaotic I never get the chance.he's going to think he's adopted when he's older!

[HunkerMunker]

Yes, as I was writing that I thought of how neglected any subsequent child will feel in the record-keeping stakes!

[pinkwhistle]

Great stuff! I love the idea of keeping the junk mail! Dd's baby book had a place to write the price of milk, newspaper, bread and the headline stories of the day. But to actually have the documents is even better!

Definitely the writing down of the funny things they say and do is important imho. You think you will remember but you just can't. I know of mums who have written diaries thru their pregnancy as well to give to their child when they are older. Lovely idea I think - way too late for me of course! Mind you I don't know that dd or ds would want to read about mummy's back pain, leg cramps and fainting!

[gingerbear]

I kept DD's cord stump and clamp. Looked at it the other day and it was so gross I had to get rid!
What on EARTH possessed me to keep it???

[roisin]

LOL gingerbear. What were you doing up at 5.30 am?

[Fennel]

I've been doing a scrapbook for dd3 and am still doing the ones for dd1 and dd2, including all the pregnancy bits and scans. Have to say that dd3's pregnancy diary was rather minimal but I feel obliged to do the scrapbook as thoroughly as if it was my first time. and fake the same level of interest in the task.

[gingerbear]

Insomnia Roisin, brought on by early night - I fell asleep with DD at 8pm last night - bet I regret that later today.

[wilbur]

Lovely ideas pinkwhistle, esp like the clothes one. Ds had me in stiches the other night as he put on my HUGE sweatshirt (bought in anticipation of pregnancy bump) and looked hilarious in it. I wrie ds and dd a letter on or around their birthdays every year, just an outline of what we did, who we spent time with , what happened in our family etc. Hopefully they will be fun to read when they are older.

fastasleep - I've got a Theo too

[Eulalia]

I keep a diary, take LOTS of photos like 70 per month but are digital so can select special ones for printing. Have video recordings. Newspaper from day of births. Also have flowers pressed from time of birth and still have the plant dh bought me from ds's birth. Ink foot imprints for both ds and dd just a few days old. Lockets of hair.... I am rather sentimental....I also did lots of seasonal photos ie ds in the garden a lot when he was a tiny baby in the summer, next to certain flowers etc. dd was April so heaps of photos of her next to daffodils and holding them. Have also got some more unusual photos that you'd not normally think of taking like the kids strapped into the baby seat of the supermarket trolley, very ordinary but its actually quite intersting to look back on. I tend to take my camera everywhere especially in the early months.

Oh and pics of me breastfeeding, discreet ones of course but I've spent so many years doing it, its nice to have a few photos. Have got one with the cat on one knee and ds on the other!

[root]

We kept all DS' hospital things - wristband etc. plus a copy of the Observer from the day he was born. DP takes a photo of him EVERY day, if not three or four and we both kept a brief diary about what he's been up to.

We also had casts made of his tiny hands and feet by this lovely little company called Wrightson and Platt - we get them out every now and then to see how much he's grown.

[franch]

My goodness, how do you all find the time???? Feeling guilty now that DD will grow up traumatised by the vacuum of evidence of her first year .... (I thought we'd done loads till I read this thread!)

[Catbert]

Gingerbear - did you know in Japan it is a custom for the midwife to give the mother her child's "stump" in a presentation box as a keepsake!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooow!

[Fastasleep]

We still have stumpy .....is that bad? He's in a box in a kwikzip bag with 'RIP stumpy' and the date on it and that is bad isn't it