Baby and Photo Sharing

Can You Have Too Many Baby Pictures?

It can start with a sonogram while you're still pregnant. Collecting photographs of your baby come naturally, but is there such a thing as having too many baby pictures? If you are overwhelmed with a flood of 4x6 prints or a hard drived stuffed full of images, our tips for organinzing baby photos will get you back on track.

Visual Milestones of Baby's First Year

It's perfectly natural to want to have photographs or even video of the developmental moments of your baby's first year. Especially now with digital cameras that have made it even easier to record everything from junior's first sneeze to his first Prom. But can you have too many baby pictures?  If we go around showing all these photos to our friends and family, they might think the answer is, "yes."  Would we want to have someone else showing us countless photos of her newborn in every type of situation there is? The answer probably depends on how much you like babies, but most of us are happy with the occaional snapshot of Facebook update.

However, if you want to these photos as a way to be able to remember all of the milestones during a child’s first year of life, then it becomes a totally different story. It's important to capture all those "firsts" for yourself and your child. First bottle, first bath, first teeth, first giggle, first steps, first family party and all those other special moments are well worth preserving, but when you've got more baby photos than you know what to do with, it might seem a little overwhemling. Here are some tips for organizing baby photos.

• Make a special scrap book or photo album, chronicling the child's first year. Along with the pictures, you can include dates and even special messages. Be creative. After all, this will be your own personal project. Consider doing a new album for each year of your child's life.
• Use the file system on your computer to group images by child, date, and/or subject. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of where photos are saved and to keep notes on specific images.
• Online photo sharing sites like Flickr, Photobucket, and Shutterfly are a great way to send pictures to others and also keep backup copies of your images. Because photos uploaded to these sites are stored on computers outside your home, your images will be protected if something happens to your home computer.
• If you aren't a scrapbooker, consider uploading your photos and creating photo books. Everything is done online, so there is no fussy cutting or messy glue. These books are available at the photo sharing sites mentioned above and also on the websites of most big-box stores like Target, Wal-Mart, and Walgreens.
• If you really do have too many baby pictures, it may be time to cull the herd. Go through your images and erase duplicates, blurry shots, or anything you don't absolutely love. Scan prints and keep digital copies whenever possible.