I am currently expecting my third child, and have given up on the whole baby book thing. I only halfway filled one out for my first child, and didn’t even purchase a book for my second child. At first I felt guilty, but then I realized that even though my mom had a baby book for me, I’ve never really looked at it or cared much that she had one. My husband has never seen his either. So, I’m betting that my children won’t care much when they grow up that they don’t have a baby book to look through. They will have photo albums of pictures, videos to watch, and memories that I will speak of, so I think that will be enough.

I can call this the best idea ever because it wasn’t my own idea—just one that the minute I heard it the heavens opened up and the choir sang. Baby book as e-mail. Feels like magic, huh? The thought of keeping a physical baby book gave me such a stomachache because I knew I’d never do it (and I’d spend forever feeling bad about it). Who has time to write down every special thing their baby does? Who even has time to FIND A PEN? I opened up an e-mail account for my daughter while I was in the maternity ward, cc’d her on the “We Welcome with Joy” e-mail that went out to all our family and co-workers and have kept her in my contacts ever since. It’s so easy to shoot off a quick e-mail to say “today was the day you…” and send photos and movies and ask others to, too. Best Idea Ever, right? To me, it was magic!

K. Annie: that is SO COOL. Your kid is going to love having those emails read to her when she’s old enough, and when she’s older, reading about herself when she was little! What a great way to document a life.

I’m the 2nd of 2 children, and while I do have a baby-book, it’s obvious that my mom gave up on it sometime in my 6th month of life, and as such, it’s pretty sparse. Classic second-child shaft, really. :) For the most part, I don’t care that my baby book is largely incomplete, but I do remember being totally blown away and overcome with curiosity the first time I ever looked at it (when I was a little girl).

There is a small part of me that wishes it was better flushed out, because my mom died when I was young, so I can’t ask her any questions about her pregnancy, birth experience, my temperament as a bay, my development or anything else, which is something I think most women would like to do once they get pregnant themselves.

Madeline — My older sister’s baby book is the size of the OED. Mine is the size of a pamphlet from the doctor’s office. Whatever you do, do it equally. It still stings me a bit to this day.

I’m the second of two, myself, Meredith. Oh, I know the sting!
LTOO — I’m hoping the disorganized mess of image files will be good enough, too.

Thank you for writing this piece. I also like the idea, but am not good with the follow-through. My mom didn’t even know where my baby book was, which she admitted was barely half-filled and my little brother didn’t even have one at all. I had a sinking feeling I’d take after my mom when it came to baby books, as sentimental as I am.

The only reason we have one for our son is because someone gave it to us as a gift and sure enough, what are the only sections filled out? What my husband and I wrote while still in the hospital. The box the book came in is stuffed with cards, pictures and other things I theoretically someday will actually paste into the book. I’ll probably never actually do this, but just knowing the stuff is all in one place helps temper the guilt.

I have been writing a blog though, so slowly I’ve been letting go of the baby book guilt, because my son will still have a recording of his early years. I’m hoping the stories I tell will be of more interest to him someday than knowing when he got his first tooth or what his first word was.