The days are long, but the years are oh so short. How will you keep hold of those precious memories, the small moments, the milestones?

It is so easy to take a million and one photos per day and never get around to doing anything with them. It seems such a shame to keep them in your phone or even backed up on a computer. With baby changing every day it is so easy to forget what they looked like, how small they were.

Photos are for displaying, for seeing!

There are many ways you can keep a record of baby’s first year (and beyond) whilst keeping wall space in your home.

1) Print a picture per month to display – watch how quickly they grow and change. A picture taken on their month birthdays, or just simply your favourite picture of the month. But display them!

2) Lots of photo apps (Snapfish, Freeprints for example) give you 50 free prints a month.  You just pay for postage. Upload and get them delivered each month and you can put them in baby photo albums.

3) Photobooks – Snapfish, Photo Box, Bonus Print etc. all do photobooks. You can add up to 16 photos per page and get a lovely photobook to mark a year in the life of baby. I do this each year for my two. They love looking back through them as they get older to see what they did when they were small.

4) 1 picture a day – there are lots of apps that can make a movie – this is a cute example

5) A newborn, or baby photoshoot – some photographers offer newborn shoots in a studio, others offer them at your home. Some prefer to shoot brand new little ones, others love the magic of when baby is a little more awake and interactive. There are so many wonderful photographers locally, I highly recommend Alannah Hebbert Photography and Fables in Focus for relaxed and less posed photos. Otherwise Newborn Love or Sonya Harrap are amazing for more posed photo.

How about other ways to capture memories?

Instead (let’s be honest, as well as!) photographs, how about a one-second video per day? Added up over year and that’s a lovely 6 minute video.

There are lots of hand casting companies who can create a cast of baby’s hands and/or feet. A forever keepsake to capture just how tiny they were. Locally, Daisy Dream Keepsakes and Ten Teeny Toes offer framed 3D castings.

If you’d like some professional hand/footprints on ceramic items, fired and sealed professionally then Potstop in Knebworth are your go-to, as are Pots of Art at Hatfield House.

There are even DIY kits if you are brave enough to try at home! Alternatively, there are clay kits that create a flat imprint of those tiny hands and feet.

I have used salt dough in the past for my baby foot prints. So easy to make and soft enough to roll out again if the imprint isn’t ideal the first time. You just then pop it in a low oven/microwave until it hardens.

1/2 cup salt

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of water

Combine salt and flour, slowly add water to form a dough. Adding more water as needed, if you add too much water simply add more flour. Kneed until smooth. Roll out into desired shape and then gently push baby’s hand/foot into the shape to create an imprint. Place in a low oven until hardened and dried. Or alternatively, place in the microwave for 10 second bursts until hardened and dried.

Clothing keepsakes

There are lots of companies who make patchwork blankets or teddies from baby’s first clothes and these can be a wonderful memory, putting to use the treasured tiny clothes so you can always have a reminder of them but not having clothes cluttering the place.

The company I personally used to get blankets made for my two is LoveKeepCreate, who make stunning items and really look after your clothes.

Breastmilk/first lock of hair jewellery

This can be a lovely reminder of your journey, whether you have stopped breastfeeding, reached a feeding milestone or once baby has had their first haircut.

Hand/Footprint jewellery

How about little hands and feet prints on to jewellery and keepsakes? You’ll find an amazing local business Prints and Bows will take a print and create something amazing to wear.

Notebook

Even if the traditional baby memory book remains untouched it can be a wonderful idea to keep a journal of day-to-day life with baby so they can look back on it when they are older. Just a sentence or two a day, and as they grow you can add in funny sayings, mispronunciations, moments that made your laugh, their likes/dislikes etc. Write about how much your child beamed on the swings at the park, or how she kept chasing the pigeons.

You could even set them up an email address and send them emails rather than write it down if you would prefer.