Hack to easily document your baby's first year

In honour of our son and third baby's first birthday I thought I'd share a wee hack I have come up with with you.

With cameras in our pockets most of the time these days mothers are taking thousands of photos of their children (I'm going to hazard a guess that it's a common habit regardless if whether you like to share them on social media or not!). The problem with the endless supply of pictures of our little cherubs is that it becomes so difficult to choose our favourites and create albums of the important early years. If you're anything like me you still like to have a book with the "best of" even in these technological days where everything is backed up online.

Somehow I found the time to scrap book an album of our first born's first year but finding the time to make something as special for her younger sister seemed like it would be an impossible task. However I figured out an easy and very effortless way to document her year in photos. A system that I've stuck to now with baby number 3.

Basically I make a weekly collage of my favourite photos of them. It can be difficult enough choosing photos then as some weeks I have taken ridiculous amounts of pictures.

My rule is that the photo is only of the baby which narrows down my choices.
If a new milestone has been hit that week I try to add a photo of it as well.
I try to make sure I make the collage the same day every week, so this year it's been every Tuesday, to avoid forgetting it (I'm a creature of habit).
I have saved all the collages to their own album on my phone to make it easy to find and look through, it also means that I can check the number of collages against his age in case I've forgotten to make one.
At the end of the year you have 52 collages that show the transformation your baby has gone through.

It's so easy to get them printed into a book at the end of the year. So there you go a stress-free, easy and visually pleasing way to document your child's important first year.

(I've not added notes in our seconds born's album but am thinking that will be a nice added touch if I have time this time around.)

P.S. Of course you can use this method to document other periods in yours or your family's life too. For me it saved me such a head ache doing a little bit weekly rather than feeling guilt later on that I haven't made my subsequent children keepsakes of their first year when so much thought and effort went into our firstborn's album!

Here are a few of Elis' weeks from the last year. Although I love the handmade album our eldest got I kind of wish I'd thought to make these for her too. Can't wait to have these printed in a book!