Baby Books: Are You Keeping Track?

by Catherine Ipcizade | More from this Blogger

If you had a baby shower, you likely received one or more baby books - you know, those cute books that allow you to write down the milestones in your baby's life. But how many parents actually write in them?

I'd say the percentage is high in the beginning. And I would be willing to bet that if you opened up most baby books, you'd see a picture of a bright bumbling newborn along with his or her first measurements. But after that...many parents just forget to keep going!

We're all busy as parents, especially when there is a little baby to keep us running all hours of the day and night. Writing in the baby's book soon seems more like a luxury than a necessity! But here's the thing: babies need you to write in them!

If you're like me, and your parents gave you your baby book when you became an adult, were you disappointed, as I was, to open it and see most of it blank? In my case, my mother had written some of my measurements, which I've often looked back on in comparison with my own children's measurements. She and my dad also completed the section of the book where they wrote a special letter to me. I am forever grateful of that to this day, because it allowed me to know how they were feeling at that time in my life. My husband's baby book was much the same, mostly blank but with the all-important letter written in his mother's handwriting.

The first years of our lives are filled with miraculous events that lead us to adulthood. And yet we remember very few of these events. Baby books are a way to know whom we were and what we did at a time that shaped our lives, but that escapes our memories.

If you haven't picked up your baby's book lately, consider getting it out when you put the baby to bed tonight. Take a minute and fill out a page or two. Make a weekly or month date to update the pages. Your baby will be so glad you did. And so will you. It would be nice if we remembered every detail of parenting from the times our children are born until they go off to college, but it doesn't work that way. For some reason, amnesia seems to set in on all of us, and most of the details that we're just certain we'll remember forever, are in time forgotten.

When my husband's mother passed away recently, he had to travel to Turkey for her funeral. Upon returning home, he was only able to bring back with him a very select few items. His baby book was one of those items. And though very few pages were written in, the pages that contained his mother's handwriting in a letter to him were priceless. That book was the most important thing he brought back home.

Your writing, your words, your records, your thoughts - they matter to your baby. They matter today, and tomorrow, and 20 years from now. Give it some thought.

Learn more about Catherine Ipcizade

Cathy Ipcizade is 30 years old and currently resides in Southern California. Prior to coming to California she grew up in Arizona.

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