After Your Adoption: Creating a Baby Book

If you'd like to create an adoption baby book for your child, and it's your first time trying your hand at this type of craft, you might be unsure where to begin to create a baby book for your baby's first year. Well here are a few tips to make creating a beautiful adoption baby book quick and painless, and to preserve all those special photos, notes and memories.

The first step is to organize your photos. If your baby is newly-adopted, you may not have a large photo collection yet, but don't let that deter you. You can continue to add to your book as your baby grows. Also it's important to narrow down your choices for pictures to include in your baby book.

This "editing" step is the hardest for most people because they want to include every single photo they have. Resist the temptation to do that though--it will only make your adoption baby book cluttered and confused. Chose several of your favorites from each month you've had your new baby, and organize them by date (more about this later).

You can choose to create a single page or a few pages for each particular month and organize them to follow your adopted baby's growth and development. Keeping a notebook or timeline of events within reach will help remind you of important events to include in your book. Then just coordinate all these events on your calendar with monthly photos to see the passage of time as your baby grows.

Some adoption parents choose to keep an adoption journal as well, recording all that steps that lead up to the baby arriving at home with her new family. You can of course also include special events in baby's early life and create a detailed scrapbook of appropriate keepsakes and events. When it comes to baby books, it is important to remember that you can get as detailed and elaborate as you wish, or opt to keep the book simple, with just photos and captions--it really is all up to you.

Including an extra folder or binder sleeve to some of the pages of your is a great way to hold on to small keepsakes, locks of hair or other precious items and mementos. This way these memories are always within easy reach any time you open your baby book. Be sure to include the date and location for all photos on the back of the pictures themselves, or somewhere on the folder.

When creating the individual pages of your baby book, you might want to add extra pages here and there with funny notes or stories about bringing home your adopted baby or his growth and development during the first few months.

As adopted children grow, it can be important for them to see your baby book, and all the love and attention that went into creating these memories of their first year. Crating an adoption baby book will preserve these precious moments for both the parents and the newly adopted child as the years go by.