Why do we still buy baby albums? Last year, 4.2 million American babies were born, and category leader C.R. Gibson — which sold the first baby books in 1898 and now has over 20% of the pre-fab baby book market — sold roughly 800,000 traditional, hard-copy baby books to their families.
I don’t judge. As an expectant mother last year, I listed a baby album on Lila’s baby registry. I figured, everyone has one; my daughter should, too.
The rest of our registry list was practical, and included items we needed to care for Lila on a daily basis, like burp cloths and snot suckers. The baby album was the rare item that was more reflective, an attempt to capture all of the excitement my husband and I assumed would begin imminently — and continue at Wi-Fi speed.
There’s only one problem: Our album is like the tortoise in a hare’s world. What busy mother remembers to jot down every change in her baby’s album? I, for one, can’t seem to remember to write down all of Lila’s accomplishments, and then there are the times when I discover that our album has no page to record Lila’s newest development, like the time she propelled herself forward yoga-style, in what I dubbed Flying Plank Pose.
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