Finding out you’re pregnant can be exhilarating and exciting. But that 40-week mark can seem so far away, especially in the beginning. A fun way to countdown to your baby’s birth is by doing a weekly photo and jotting down some memories and milestones from that week. Whether you blog or just journal, below are some tips and ideas to get you started.
- Start early and stick to it! Just because you may not be showing, it’s still fun to learn about and track what’s happening with your pregnancy. And even if you’re in the throes of morning sickness, you’ll be glad later that you took a few moments to record your milestones and snap a photo.
- Take a weekly photo of your bump in the same location. Choose a few poses (profile, front, etc.) and stay consistent. Check out the Daily Mom tutorial on photographing your belly.
- Buy a set of pregnancy stickers to use in your photo. Check out Belly Banter pregnancy stickers for more inspiration.
- Grab a large, plain white T-shirt and make it into a “calendar” to wear in your weekly bump photo. You can write 1-40 on it and cross each week out as it passes. Use iron-ons, fabric paint, or some kid-friendly fabric markers and get your other children involved by letting them help you with the shirt. Wearing an over-sized plain white T-shirt in your weekly picture is also a good way to emphasize the growth of your bump.
- Checkout the list above for weekly prompts to blog or journal about.
- You can incorporate a chalkboard or whiteboard into your photo to identify the week and any milestones you like (“baby is 5 inches long”, “baby is a boy”, “baby started kicking”, and so on). Or use Photoshop to add in this information later.
- Buy a piece of fruit that corresponds to the size of your baby for your weekly photo.
- If you have other children, include them in your weekly photo too. Let them hold up a sign or a piece of fruit representing the size of the baby. It’s also fun to see them grow along with your belly!
- Learn how to take great silhouette and black & white photos, they can be particularly poignant and great for showing off your bump.
- After your pregnancy, compile all your pictures into a “stop-motion” video. This can be as simple as making an animated GIF, or as fancy as setting your pictures to music. Take at least 5-10 shots each week in different poses. Get creative, be spontaneous, smile, laugh, look away from the camera, dance, play with your children, look at your belly, and just have fun.
- There are a ton of apps for your mobile phone that you can use to track your pregnancy and get weekly updates about your baby’s development. Check out BabyCenter’s My Pregnancy Today and Sprout Pregnancy Essentials, which features great graphics.
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