There are two SENSE books in front of you. Both are warm, both are about a time you want to keep, and the question is always the same: a pregnancy journal or a baby book, where do you start?
The difference is simple: in the journal the main voice is the mother’s, in the baby book it is the child’s.
Pregnancy journal: a book about the mother
Pregnancy Journal helps you keep the warmest moments of waiting: from the first dreams and plans to the day you meet.
This is a book about the mother. About her nine months, about the first ultrasound photo, about the first kick, about the name you chose together and have told no one yet. About that quiet happiness you want to keep for yourself.
It has room for thoughts, photos, plans and honest notes that become priceless over the years. You write here simply and for yourself: a few lines today, a photo a week later, a letter to your child that you will show one day. Writing every day is not required, what matters is having somewhere to write.
Most often the journal is started right after the first ultrasound: the scan is already in your hands and it needs a place to live. After that everyone writes in her own way. Some once a week, some once a month, some jot a line down on their phone and copy it into the book in the evening. There is no correct way here, there is yours.
The most valuable part comes later. Years from now you will open the journal and return to these days not by dates but by feelings: how it all began, how you waited, how you loved before you had even met. And one day this story will be read by the person it was written about.
Baby book: a book for the child
Baby Book helps you keep the most precious moments of childhood: from waiting for the baby to the first school years.
The main character here is a different one. The first “mama”, the first tooth, the first steps, funny quotes, small victories and ordinary days that feel the warmest later on. Everything that adds up to a family story.
The first chapters are about waiting too, so there is room for pregnancy memories in this book as well. After that it follows the child and does not stop: the first year, the first word, the first day at school.
It is best filled in together. Dad remembers one thing, mum another, and together you get what neither of you would recall alone. And when the child grows up, they start dictating it themselves, and the book fills with phrases the whole family quotes later.
This is a book you will want to come back to again and again. And one day the child will pick it up and read about themselves.
Both books arrive ready for the first entry. The set includes photo corners, a SENSE sticker pack and a gold pen: the journal comes with the “A Miracle Inside You” pen, the baby book with “You’re a Wonderful Mum”. There is nothing to buy on top, you just sit down and write.
A simple rule by term
Most often the term itself suggests the choice, and the rule here is short.
First trimester and the start of the second: take the journal. There are still many weeks ahead that are worth living consciously and writing down while they last: the first ultrasound, the first kick, the first plans together. What is written today is worth the most years from now.
Third trimester: go straight for the baby book. It begins exactly when the child begins, and it has whole years ahead of it. And the pregnancy memories already have their own pages in it.
If the book is being given to you and your term is still early, feel free to ask for the journal instead. The baby book will wait for its time.
When it is worth having both
When you want each story to live separately: the mother’s before the meeting, the child’s after it. One book about how you waited, the other about how they grew.
This is often done with a first child. And it is done when the baby book is a gift and the mother keeps the journal for herself.
Next to the book, everything small and precious gradually gathers: an ultrasound scan, the hospital tag, the first lock of hair, the ribbon from the discharge day. That is exactly the job of a keepsake box, and the split between them is warm and simple: the book keeps the words, the box keeps the things.
If it is a gift
If you are looking for what to give a pregnant friend, sister or wife, the guide is the same. Look at the term of the person you are giving it to.
Up to the twentieth week the journal fits better: the mother still has half the way ahead of her and will have time to live it with her book. Closer to the birth, at a baby shower or already at the maternity hospital, the baby book fits better.
And if the term is unknown, a safe choice is a keepsake box: the book is already inside it, and there is room next to it for everything that gathers later.
The questions people ask most
When should you start a pregnancy journal? As soon as you feel like it. The most convenient moment is the first ultrasound: the book immediately gets its first photo and its first date.
Can you start a baby book after the birth? Yes. The chapters about waiting can be filled in from memory in one evening, and after that the book goes on by itself.
And what if it is a second child? A baby book is kept separately for each child, it is their own personal story. A pregnancy journal is kept less often the second time, and yet those notes turn out to be the calmest.
How much time does it take? A few minutes a week. The book does not demand regularity, it simply waits.
Pregnancy journal or baby book: in short
Whose voice. In the journal it is the mother’s, in the baby book the child’s.
Who it is about. The journal is about the mother, the baby book about the child.
From what moment. The journal from the first weeks of pregnancy, the book from the waiting and then for years.
When to choose which. The journal in the first and early second trimester, the baby book in the third and after the birth.
Who reads it first. The journal the child will read when they grow up, the baby book when they learn to read.
Both books do the same thing: they turn days that pass quickly into a family story. One keeps it in the mother’s words, the other in the child’s.
Choose by whose voice should stay on the pages. Both books can be ordered right here: the pregnancy journal in grey and cream, the baby book in cream and olive. And if you would like to give it all in one go, take a look at the keepsake boxes: the book is already inside, and there is room next to it for everything that gathers later.
