What do you think of, when it comes to tracking a child’s growth? Chances are that you’re thinking about marking doorframes, just as I thought before my research on the topic. But there are so many creative ways to track a child’s growth. Let me show you some cute examples.
Take milestone pictures
Okay, this one may come to mind hand in hand with growth charts on doorframes. I just want to throw light on the idea of variety in this category. Have you decided to take a birthday photo of your baby every year? Then mark the age with the help of different objects. You can use toy blocks with letters or numbers. Look around for inspiration and “write” numbers with pumpkins or colorful maple leaves for Autumn children. Use flowers or snowballs to mark the age on other season photos.
The previous photo theme works for a child of any age but there is one that fits babies so perfectly. Place a favourite toy next to your child in each photo. It looks extremely cute and also gives you an object to compare the size and estimate the growth. You can take the photos monthly for a baby, as little babies change in a blink, or yearly for an older child.
If your child is of school age, encourage her or him to reflect on the school year with milestone photos. Take one on the first and last day of each school year and you’ll get a great moment of talking out the changes.
No matter what photo theme you’ve chosen, remember to put all the pictures in a baby collage to get a real wow effect of all the photos placed next to each other.
Save the Prints
Babies always fascinate us by their tiny-tiny feet and hands. You can create a super adorable piece of art by keeping their prints. Leave them on canvas every month and by the end of the first year you’ll see how much your little one has grown. The footprints will still remain tiny so all the 12 pairs can fit into one canvas and look awesome.
If you want to keep saving prints for a longer period you will run into space issues with canvas. Another option is to outline your baby’s hand on a piece of colored paper, cut it and stack on top of each other. Such a craft doesn’t take much space even if you build it up for years.
Record an Interview
You can also repeatedly mark a significant day like a birthday, the first day of school or summer break with an interview. Use the same questions and you will track the evolving view of life of your child. Ask him or her about favourite books, toys, places to visit or best friends. You can use a paper questionnaire with cute design. If your child can’t read yet, write in the answers yourself. However I would suggest that you should record such interviews. The records give a chance not only to keep the answers to the questions but also show the way your child looks and talks like. Just think over a safe way to keep all those records.
Track the Changing Preferences
Favourite books and characters are a big part of childhood memories. Keep these memories on one shelf. Every year ask your child to pick the best book she or he has read and put it on a shelf. Add an inscription that specifies why this book has driven love and attention. Thus you’ll get a whole storyline of likes and preferences.
Songs can also be organized in a similar way. If you don’t trust cloud storages you still can save files on CD disks or memory cards. It’s just less spectacular than colorful books that look like a part and parcel of a room.
Keep a Journal
Share your own impressions in a journal or diary. Record your emotions during the months of pregnancy or share the feeling of love that your baby sparkled in you. Then you can document every moment of your baby growing up, put onto the pages all the funny stories that happen. Make quotes when your child starts talking, believe me a toddler will make you laugh with all the made-up words and creative ideas that would just never come to an adult’s mind. Such a dedicated journal will make an immensely meaningful gift for your child’s full age birthday and help her or him to recall the childhood memories and feel all your love.
Every parent aspires to build up a happy future for a child and this is a goal that is worth any effort. But chasing the future one can overlook the present and all the precious moments of your child’s first years may slip away from you. Any of these ways is great to keep the sweet memories and share the love with your child. Just pick the one that seems to have the greatest pay-off for you and try it.
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