How is your life story book presented?

[DodoBaggins]

We have made our own life story book for our LO because we felt we could do it justice more than our SW.

I've been pondering how to present it though. I could get it printed into a book, but think that we would want to add to it over the years, so having something flexible would be better.

This leads me to either laminated pages which are either hole punched and bound, or ringwire bound. I just worry that this is a bit meh and seems like we didn't bother with a "proper book".

LO is not yet two, so frankly couldn't care less right now on how it's presented and will just be annoyed that it doesn't make a noise. This also leads me to the laminated version to make it a bit more toddler proof. I could also add flaps and sensory bits to the laminated pages.

Maybe go for this and then when LO is older make the fancier book together?

I'd welcome your opinions please!

My DS is 5. I did his life story book myself and printed it up as a proper book, knowing it would be a point in time rather than adding to it. He's been home for four years though so he already has quite a bit of history post adoption. It's very sturdy with glossy pages. I used the Joy Rees method but with a lot of photos and less text than she uses in her examples. It's very much written for the age he is now and is a lot about who he is now, school, hobbies etc. and his forever family but also looks back on his birth, birth parents and time with foster carers. It seems to do the job. He enjoys looking through it on his own and likes me reading it to him. I can't say if it will be the right tool in 3 or 5 years but I hope it's a book he'll want to keep. He does also have a loose leaf book made by a social worker but in spite of the pictures of fluffy bunnies and winnie the pooh the content is pitched for a much older child. I can imagine bringing this out in a few years, or I might just make him another book with the more detailed information but without the childish illustrations.

we had life story work with a therapist. The completed work is just sheets of A4 in plastic pockets in a ring binder.
He was 15 when he got it and is quite happy with it. It doesnt need to be fancy, think practical and being able to add to it.

Our LO now 5 couldn't cope with having it all in one book - she completely shut down into survival mode for a long time at the idea she hasn't always lived with us. Her story is also quite complicated and the book done by her social worker was far too wordy for such a young child. She has one book of photos sent by foster carers which I scanned and chose ones that reflected how she'd grown and developed while there including things she'd really enjoyed. The second is in picture book style with photos taken of her with various birth family members during contact and explains a little bit about them. The rest(!) are done one a year, starting with photos taken during her transition to coming home and are divided into months of the year. I have them all printed off and she loves looking at them. It makes talking about her adoption much easier.

It is very much a snap shot in time though and we now need to think about what to do with new photos as we've recently agreed to accept photos from birth family.

The DDs' books are ring binders with each page in a plastic pocket.

We also made a cut down version for DD2 for when she was tiny in a photo / scrapbook album with mainly just one or 2 photos and 1 or 2 sentences on each page.

I had a simple ringbound book printed when my daughers were 6. When they were 10, I made a very fancy looking book with Mixbook.com. My daughters are very proud of the Mixbook ones. they also have Jean Camis' "My Life and Me" book. So basically we have a simple one, a detailed one and one in which they can write from their own perspective information that is important to them.

I chose to make a very fancy looking version, because I wanted to convey the message that their life is something to be proud of. There is a lot of tough information in there, but I didn't want it to look as if those events defined them or their future.

I'm with you on making your own ..the one we were provided was extremely basic (literally a laminated "this is your birth mum, this is your birth dad, this is your new home" 😑 So we will be making our own too as I don't even consider it a life book. My idea is to make it into a scrapbook but my LO is similar age to you and I agree maybe the more fiddly style is for when they're a bit older. Judging by the rate at which my toddler regularly manages to break/ruin their belongings (!) Id say a laminated photo book might work well!!