Creating a Photo Book for Family Face Recognition

For a baby Christmas Day is just another day, but when they have older siblings you can’t leave them out. Why wouldn’t Father Christmas leave a filled stocking for the little sister? So what do you put in a Christmas stocking for a baby? One idea I’ve had is a family photo book.
Text saying "photo book to help babies recognise family" and a photograph of the photo book with all the pages fanned out


I don’t know how often babies need to see someone to recognise them. Little definitely recognises me, her Daddy and her big sister because she gets excited and gives a big smile when she sees us. The people she sees less often she has started to be initially wary of when they visit. 

I remember reading about family photo books years ago and I can’t remember where the original suggestion came from, but the idea is that if you show a baby photographs of people regularly it helps them recognise people. Add in the benefits you get from sharing a book with babies and how much they love looking at faces and I think this is a really great thing to do.

I created my family photo book with POP BOOK because it was really easy to use their app to upload the photographs which were on my phone. They sent me a code to create the book and you can read my review here. The book is lovely and small so it is great to pop in a Christmas stocking or changing bag. I had originally planned to make the book myself using a plain hardback book and photographs, but more than 4 years after buying the book for my eldest I hadn't managed to put it together so I appreciated the motivation to do it an easy way.
The first 2 pages of the photo book showing a family portrait called "my family" and 2 girls hugging called "sisters" book rests on top of envelope with the POP BOOK image showing

How to make a family photo book:

  1. Decide how many photograph’s you want. For the POP BOOK I needed 21 photographs so I counted up the list of who I wanted to feature. I had a couple of spaces so I included a family portrait and one of the two sisters. 
  2. Find all the photographs. This was the hard part for me. I’m always taking photo’s, but I still didn’t have up to date snaps of everyone I wanted to include. I created an album on my phone to keep them all together while I collected them.
  3. Add text. I think it makes the book more interesting to have the name of the person on each page. There are a huge number of apps which will let you edit pictures and add text or the POP BOOK gives you the option as part of the upload process.
  4. Choose the order of the pictures. 
  5. Get it printed. If you are ordering a photo book it will pop through your door ready made, if you are sticking the pages in a book yourself you have a bit more work to do.
Then you just need to sit down with your baby and show them the book while the giggle with excitement.

No comments

Thanks for your comment (unless it's spam in which case, why?)