Pregnancy memory keeping: what to record before they arrive

Pregnancy is the first chapter of your child's story, and the strangest thing about it is how thoroughly you forget it. The details feel unforgettable at the time; by the second birthday they are gone. Here is what is worth recording — and what nobody warns you to capture.

The classics (do these)

• Monthly bump photo — same spot, same angle, from whenever you like to the end.
• Scan photos — photograph them immediately; thermal paper fades within a few years.
• The name shortlist — including the rejected ones and who vetoed what. Comedy gold later.
• A letter to the baby — one in each trimester. Three short letters beat one perfect one.

The details everyone forgets

• The cravings and aversions — with dates. The week you couldn't be in the same room as coffee.
• How you told people — and their reactions. Film the grandparents if you can.
• The predictions — everyone's guess at sex, weight, date and personality. Score them later.
• The world around you — what the news was, what the house looked like, the song of that summer.
• Dad's/partner's version — the non-pregnant parent's diary of the same events is a perspective the child will love.

Where to keep it all

Paper journals are lovely and get abandoned by week 20. The lower-friction option is logging moments in a private memory app — a photo, a voice note, thirty seconds — with everything staying on your device rather than a company's server (worth caring about before the baby even has a name; see built for families, not the feed).

Turn it into the first book

Nine months of bump photos, letters and predictions makes a beautiful opening chapter for the first-year photo book — or a slim book of its own. Print it; thermal scans and phone notes deserve paper.