Top takeaways:

• There are various types of baby books ranging from simple photo albums to personal journals
• Mixbook’s customization tools let you combine different ideas and styles from all baby book types
• Photo and text choices should record key moments from birth to their first birthday—but parents get to pick (or skip) their own most important milestones
• Personalization is key to creating the best baby journal

How to create the best baby journal and capture every precious moment

Collections of baby photos are uniquely precious. Babies grow from tiny newborns to rambunctious toddlers in the blink of an eye, but photos promise a way to pause and look back upon each adorable moment. Printing your favorites in a custom photo book turns them into a tangible treasure you’ll keep forever. The best baby journal will capture the stories of your child’s brand-new life, all their major milestones, and personal recollections of parenthood.

Whether you’re a new parent or a thoughtful gift-giver, you’ll find many options for different types of baby books. We believe the best baby journals are those that you can personalize in every way. Mixbook’s baby book themes offer diverse styles and design details to get you started, but are always 100% customizable.

Related: Your Baby’s First Year Guide

Different types of baby books

A photo book or album dedicated to your baby is a timeless tradition. The basic purpose is always the same—preserving favorite baby photos and key memories—but the content, format, and style of a baby book varies widely. Examples include:

• A simple photo album featuring just photos and maybe short captions for details such as dates, names, or places.
• A keepsake baby book with fill-in-the-blanks features. This is a printed book with prompts for recording birth details and milestones, plus spaces to paste printed photos, envelopes for saving mementos etc.
• A parent’s personal journal with handwritten notes, memories, and scrapbook-style elements. You might be happy to share this kind of baby journal or prefer to keep it private.

With Mixbook’s baby book themes and the easy-to-use tools in Mixbook Studio™, you can mix and match different features from all types of baby books. Keep the elements you love, and skip those you don’t.

Choosing photos for your baby book

Naturally, every baby photo book needs to feature all your favorite adorable baby pics.

Photo timeline and groupings

You’ll want a collection that shows your baby’s growth and development, so try to find at least a few from each month of their life. A typical timeline will be from birth to their first birthday (because they’re not really babies after that). However, you could start with ultrasound and pregnancy pictures, and continue through the toddler years.

Start by putting your baby photos in chronological order, but also consider other groupings. Examples include photos of the baby with different relatives, with favorite toys, or “then and now” pairings. A series of photos with the same giant teddy bear or family dog, for example, is a fun way to show how much your baby has grown.

Related: Capturing precious moments: photo book ideas for first-time parents

Popular photo ideas

Popular newborn photos include close-ups of adorable features like tiny hands gripping a parent’s finger, their sweet, sleeping faces, and gummy grins. Some parents like to stage regular photo shoots with month-marking props.

Include photos in a range of settings that will remind you what life was like with your baby. Capture everyday routines at home, visits with friends and family, outings to the playground or duck pond, and any vacations. Find photos that remind you about your baby’s unique quirks, like her glee at pulling Dad’s arm hair or the months of obsession with a particular wooden spoon.

Milestone photos

It’s not realistic to capture each major milestone or “first” on camera (although it’s amazing if you did!), but you can pick photos taken around those times. You probably have photos showing your baby’s first tooth, some of their first steps, and early grins. Pair those with optional milestone captions and consider it accurate enough. First holidays are always good milestones for inspiring photo spreads.

What to write in your baby book or journal

Mixbook’s baby themes include at least some typographic elements, which are fully customizable. You can also add and edit your own using the Text panel in Mixbook Studio™. As for what, and how much, to write in your baby journal—it’s entirely up to you! The prompts in our themes are a great place to start.

Here are some other ideas for text elements:

Cover page

Customize the theme’s cover page text or design your own. You can include your baby’s name and birth date, or a sweet phrase like “Welcome Baby Boy,” “Introducing Louise Marie Smith,” or “Hello Baby!”

Intro page

Include an introduction page with details from a birth announcement (name, date, place, weight, length etc.). Most themes include a template for this. You could also scan a paper birth certificate or announcement.

Consider starting your book with a story about how your baby came into the world, and your family. It could be a birth story or adoption story, with as many details as you’re comfortable sharing.

Tip: If you welcomed your baby through adoption, we have several photo book themes designed to help you tell the story: Adoption Story, Adoption Travels, and Adoption Lifebook.

Page headers

Use the theme’s suggested page headers or write your own. Use headers to match photo spreads with a theme like “Cuddles with Grandma,” “Summer Fun,” or “Sweet Dreams.”

Milestone moments

Include details, or a simple description, of milestones like a baby's first smile, first words, and first steps. Remember, you don’t need to use typical milestones—maybe your child’s first taste of blueberries was way more memorable than his first bath. The best baby journals are customized around these unique moments.

Personal messages

Parents and siblings might like to write a short, personal message about the baby. Invite loved ones to contribute a few words of their own. Copy notes from your personal journal, if you’re comfortable sharing them.

A letter to your child

Some parents find it meaningful to write a letter to their baby expressing love, hopes, and dreams. These can be a nice inclusion in a baby book, and your child can read it when they’re older.

Quotes

Quotations that are meaningful to you can be lovely text elements in a baby journal. Ideas include quotes from people you know personally that you’ve remembered or written down, or lines from favorite books, movies, or song lyrics. Quotes from siblings about the new baby are often hilarious and adorable—write them down and preserve them in your photo book.

The best baby journal photo book themes

Mixbook’s baby book themes represent a wide range of aesthetic styles, with different layouts, text elements, and more. Browse the options and see which themes appeal to you. Remember you can easily customize everything, including fonts, color schemes, and layouts, in Mixbook Studio™.

If you like the format of a month-by-month theme, look at Baby’s Monthly First Year and Whimsy Baby First Year Milestones. (Also check out our guide, Baby Photo Book Ideas: Baby’s First Year.)

For parents who love a whimsical, gender-neutral look, consider Little Dreamer Purple and Dreamy Baby Coffee Table Book.

Want a baby book with adorable illustrations? Check out Baby Book by Cubeely Paris or Under the Sea Baby Book.

Go minimalist and modern with Hand Painted Baby or Minimal Baby Line Art.

And if you’re doubly blessed with twins (and somehow have time to make a baby book for two), there’s the Twins Minimal Baby Line Art theme.

Want to create the best baby journal?

The best baby journal is one that makes you smile and remember all the emotions of new parenthood. It’s not just about recording typical milestone moments, but capturing the unique and special child who changed your life.

A final tip for new parents: We know you don’t have much spare time or energy, so don’t feel like this needs to be a perfect project, or meet any deadline. Save your baby book project in your Mixbook account and work on it when you can. And if you need any help, just reach out to the design experts at our Help Center. They’re available 24/7.