7 Steps to Preserve Your Baby’s Memories

As our children grow up, we often look back on their childhood years with great fondness. These memories can be greatly enhanced with a little preparation and effort. These seven steps will help you preserve your baby’s memories.

Troy, OH (PRWEB) September 30, 2006 -- As children grow up, childhood years are often remembered with great fondness. These memories can be greatly enhanced with a little preparation and effort from the beginning. These seven steps will help preserve Baby's memories.

1. Keep a pregnancy journal. Thoughts and feelings about the upcoming birth should be written down. As children grow, they will appreciate being able to read about the earliest moments of their lives.

2. Retain important keepsakes and records from pregnancy and childbirth. Ultrasound images, hospital bracelets, birth certificates, and footprints will become cherished mementos.

3. Scan important keepsakes and records. Use a scanner to input hospital bracelets, birth certificates, and other keepsakes into a computer. This should be done shortly after receiving them to ensure they are safeguarded. When scanning, use a resolution between 200-300 pixels per inch.

4. Take lots of photos. Of course this comes naturally to most parents and grandparents, but in the past being camera happy was very expensive. Digital cameras have lowered the cost of taking photos, because undesirable photos may be deleted before printing.

5. Organize these photos. Unfortunately, many of the cute photos of Baby's first few months end up filed away in a shoe box or on a hard drive. Many experts recommend organizing photos chronologically. According to Amanda Behrmann at Digital Scrapbook Place, "renaming photos as they are downloaded from the camera is a great way to keep photos organized." A free software program, such as Irfanview, can help make this task more manageable. Rename photos in the following format: YYYY_MM_DD_Event_##.jpg. For example, if Baby was born on September 1, rename photos to 2006_09_01_SaraBirth_01.jpg. Then it will be easy to find a certain date or search file names for a specific event.

6. Combine the pregnancy journal, keepsakes, and photos into a scrapbook. Use a computer, scrapbooking software, and baby-themed scrapbooking graphics, such as Digital Scrapbook Place's Scraps of Life-Baby Mine CD, to make scrapbook pages to preserve Baby's memories.

7. Share Baby's scrapbook with family and friends. If the scrapbook pages were created on a computer, then simply print multiple copies. Print at home or at a camera store that offers printing services.

Web Resources:

Photo Editing Software: www.irfanview.com

Scrapbooking: www.digitalscrapbookplace.com

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