The Year You Arrived

A memory book for your baby's first year that you can actually keep up with: one photo and five short lines, once a month.

Most baby books ask for a lot, and once you miss a few pages it is hard to start again. This one asks for ten minutes on one day each month, the day your baby turns another month old. Take the month's photo the same way as last time, write five one-sentence answers, and you are done. Missed a few months? The book shows you how to fill them in one evening from your phone's photos and messages.

You print it, write in it and stick your own photos in. By the first birthday you have twelve monthly photos taken alike, so the pages show your baby growing, and a record of who they were each month: the sounds, the games, the hard nights and the people.

Who it is for

New and expecting parents, and anyone buying for them. It works for any family: the pages say "us" and "the grown-ups", the family page is empty circles you label yourself, and nothing assumes how your baby was born or how they are fed. Start at any month.

What is inside (58 pages)

• How to keep it (read once, about fifteen minutes): the ten-minute method, a filled-in example month with notes, how to write a line worth reading in twenty years (five before-and-after examples), how to take the monthly photo, how to print and stick in photos, how to catch up after falling behind, and how to print and bind the book.
• Hello: the day your baby arrived, their name, the world they arrived in, their people, and hand and foot prints at birth.
• The twelve months: two pages a month. A photo page for that age with a feature to fill in (your first week, a 24-hour day you color in at 3 and 11 months, the sounds you make, a hand tracing, a map of the room your baby explores, words they understand), then your page: a 4 x 6 inch photo space, date, weight and length, five prompts written for that month, what was new, and one line about the grown-ups.
• Milestones without the worry: at 2, 4, 6, 9 and 12 months, the CDC's milestone checklist for that age, with a box to tick and a space to write the date you first saw each one. The book explains what a milestone is (something most babies, 75% or more, do by that age), how to use corrected age for a baby born early, and that the CDC lists a few steps alone at 15 months, not 12. It says plainly when to ask your doctor or health visitor.
• Firsts and records: your baby's firsts on one year-long timeline, firsts in photos, a baby teeth chart with the NHS's usual order and ages, a growth record, WHO growth charts for girls and boys (birth to 12 months, kg and lb, cm and inches), check-ups and vaccinations, and favorites month by month.
• One year old: the first birthday, then-and-now photos, hand and foot prints at one, a letter to your child, and a page for family and friends to write in.
• Spare photo and writing pages to print as often as you like, and a page listing every health source used (CDC, NHS, WHO, American Academy of Pediatrics).

What you download

• The Year You Arrived, US Letter (58 pages, PDF, US spelling and US check-up schedule).
• The Year You Arrived, A4 (58 pages, PDF, UK spelling, health visitor and red book, UK review and vaccination ages).
• Type-in editions, US Letter and A4: the same pages with form fields on every writing line, table and milestone box, so you can type on a computer or tablet in a PDF reader that fills in forms, then print. Photos are still printed and stuck in.

Every photo space is the size of a standard 4 x 6 inch (10 x 15 cm) print. Print the pages at actual size (100%); there is a 4 inch check bar on the printing page.

Good to know

• This is a keepsake, not a medical record or a screening tool. Milestones and growth charts come from the CDC, NHS and WHO, with sources listed. Your doctor's chart or the red book is the official record.
• This is a PDF download. No physical book is shipped. You will need a printer or print shop, photo prints, and photo corners or photo-safe tape.