The Best Baby Books for Adoption

Tell your baby's adoption story with "The Story of Me."

Here at Babysakes.com we understand every child is unique and deserves a special book to document their lives. That’s why we offer a wide selection of baby memory books to fit every family situation. When a child is adopted, there is a unique aspect to their birth story that makes it difficult to use a traditional baby record book. However, there are a number of  adoption baby books designed just to tell the story of the adopted child.

The Story of ME Adoption Baby Memory Books
The Story of ME baby book allows you to customize everything from the cover fabric to an optional embroidered name and photo window for a special first photo. The hand-sewn cover fabric choices are wonderful, but you also have the option of providing your own fabric for an even more special and more personalized touch! With The Story of ME, you get to choose from several different styles of page packs that fit neatly into The Story of Me’s three-ring binder.

The optional adoption page pack include 18 pages to tell the story of your little one’s adoption, whether it was open or closed, domestic or international. Since the baby book is a looseleaf binder, you can easily  customize this book by adding or removing pages at any time. What a great way to tell your child’s story!

This is what Jenna Devereaux from Granite Bay, CA had to say about the Story of ME baby memory book:

“Love the book. I chose it because it was one of the only books I could find for adoptions. It has all the pages for all the information you’ll want to write about your baby. I love the fact that you can add blank pages, religious pages, etc. If you like to scrapbook, this book can be used in that manner. It’s a great book for anyone.”

It's the adoption page packs that make the Tessera Baby Book special!

Adoption Baby Books by Tessera Publishing
Tessera Publishing makes a wonderful adoption baby memory book as well. This album comes in 4 gorgeous cover options and features a post bound binding (screw posts that allow you to add or remove pages). The album includes pages to cover baby’s first three years and offers a huge selection of optional page packs to tailor the album to your family’s story. With the Tessera baby memory book, you can add the Domestic Adoption Page Pack (includes pages such as “Starting The Process,” “About Your Birth Mother,” and “Adoption Documentation”) or the Foreign Adoption Page Pack (includes pages such as “Your Homeland Culture,” “Travel Itineraries,” “Visiting Your Country” and more). Since you can insert just the pages you want, you can choose how much information to include about the adoption process of your baby. Hillary Carter from Ruston, LA raves:

“This album was the only one I could find that was a really great option for adoptions. It is absolutely elegant and beautiful. It has pages for almost anything you can imagine.”

Penny Laine Adoption Baby Books

Penny Laine Adoption Baby Albums
Penny Laine offers a selection of adoption-specific baby books in a choice of four fun fabric covers. Each book contains enough pages to record your baby’s milestones as well as all adoption information. This album also includes a special “Birth Parent’s page pack” that you choose to include in the three-ring binder style album. The Birth Parent’s page pack includes pages such “Things You Might Like to Know About Your Birth Mother,” a “Birth Family Tree” and “Things we talked about with your birth Mom.” Each cover has a photo window for a first photo and includes a color-coordinated satin ribbon.

This gorgeous adoption-specific album has many fans! For example Crystal St. Pierre from McKinney, Texas says:

“Very beautiful book. I adopted my daughter so finding a good adoption book wasn’t easy. This book was what I was looking for.”

And, Peggy Streck from Brook Park, OH said:

“Wonderfully specific to adopted babies, who are special in their own right! Plenty of useful pages to fill with all sorts of personal info. Very well done.”

A page from the "This is Me" adoption baby book.

This is Me!
If you want an album that is more of a comprehensive historical record keeper,  then the This Is Me Memory Book is just for you. This 76-page book has a post binding so pages can be added or removed easily. This book is gender-neutral and is great for domestic as well as international adoptions – there are versions for adoptions that are country specific, including China, Russia, South Korea and Guatemala and more. 

“This is Me” allows you to document your child’s life all they way through age 18. The book is great especially if you are adopting an older child or a child with special needs as well! It includes a huge variety of adoption pag you might not find anywhere else, such as “Places I Lived / Foster Families,” “Health Information About my Parents,” “Why Don’t I Live with My Birth Parents,” and more.

The international adoption versions include a map of the country of adoption as well as a brief history. Andrea Young from Spring Lake, NC had this to say about the China version of the This is Me book:

“My husband and I are in the process of adopting from China and I was looking for an adoption baby book.  This book is perfect!  It has a section on China and also info pages about the adoption as well as information through the years (it goes up to age 18).  The book itself can be taken apart to add or remove pages.  I’m looking forward to filling it out!”

Baby Baby - A Memory Book

Baby Baby – A Memory Book
On the other end of the spectrum is a baby book that doesn’t specifically address the adoption situation, but is designed to eliminate pages that are typically unique to a birth family. So, the Baby Baby  – A Memory Book album looks more like a traditional baby book, but is written in such a way that it works wonderfully for adopted children as well.

Its gender-neutral palate and retro-sixties motifs make it classic and hip all at the same time. It can be personalized with baby’s name and date of birth. The pages are lovely and the verbiage is extremely flexible which makes it an appropriate book for all kinds of families!

For instance, gone are pages detailing pregnancy and references to the hospital. Instead, the album starts with a page titled “First Glimpse” which reads “We found out you were coming on ____” and continues with space for a photograph for an adoption photo. Instead of a “Visitors to the Hospital Page,” there is a page titled “Who Visited You” which works perfectly for any celebration welcoming the adopted baby to the family.

So, this album is absolutely perfect if you do not want to detail the specifics of the adoption, but still want to have a baby book that can be filled out completely without awkward blank pages. The “Baby Baby” Memory Book helps you record childhood memories up to Kindergarten.

Of course, each book is acid-free, archival quality and is appropriate for adoption. And all are ready to be made into a cherished keepsake with those special memories written by a loving parent. You can view the complete selection of adoption baby memory books here.

Posh Halloween Costumes for Baby

Ribbet Ribbet - your child could be a froggie for Halloween!

It’s that time of year again. Time for ghosts and goblins – or rather, fluffy bunnies, bears, frogs and horsies. (We here at Babysakes.com get scared too easily and prefer our trick-or-treaters to be of the adorably cute variety.) 

There is nothing better than having a baby product serve double duty, so when we considered the amazing booties and coats at BabySakes.com – well, we got to thinking. What better way to dress up baby for Halloween but in a costume that is not only plush and luxurious – but is really a winter coat that will keep them warm in the upcoming colder months!

Bearington Baby offers a wonderful selection of coats and booties for babies 6 – 12 months and 12-24 months. Can’t you see your little one dressed up as an elephant in the Lil Peanut Elephant coat and matching booties. Or how about as a frog in the Froggie coat and booties. Better yet – how about as a pink bunny with the Pink Bunny coat and matching booties or as a sweet little lamb in the Lamby Coat and booties (with any luck the bunny and lamby coats and booties can pull TRIPLE duty as an outfit for the spring holidays.)

These coats are plush and fuzzy and make you want to snuggle your little one even more. Think of all the candy they can procure looking so cute (and if they don’t have any teeth – think of all the candy you get to eat on their behalf!)

Dress your baby in luxury with this faux mink!

Of course there is also the added bonus of looking like a million bucks. These Bearington Baby animal-themed coats and matching booties have the look of mink and leopard – faux of course. Your little one could be a cat or a grizzly or polar bear  – or just look fabulous for Halloween.

For those of you who want to stay a little closer to home – or the farm – these Mud Pie coats and booties are perfect. With a quack quack here or a neigh neigh there, imagine your baby roaming the neighboorhood in one of these amazing coats and matching booties.

For little ones who are spending the holiday indoors, or for our friends in warmer climates, can we suggest these fun Mud Pie sleepers? With the same EIEIO themes as the coats and booties (bunny, duckie, horsie and moo-cow), the sleepers have tails and feet and are just so cute we can’t stand it. Or if you see your baby as more of a superhero, then these Wry Baby snapsuits will help them be “Super Cute!”

So check out the fun animal-themed wear at Babysakes.com today and get your order in just in time for Trick-or-Treat. These are more than just baby Halloween costumes… they are posh baby outfits for all seasons! View the complete selection here.

My Baby Book Stinks!

Victim of Stinky Baby Book

Ok, well… that’s not quite true. My baby book definitely does not stink, because I had a rather nice selection to choose from. But, it just may be that your baby book wasn’t exactly what you were hoping for. Perhaps you bought it only to find out that the memory book pages didn’t collect the information you wanted. Maybe it’s too hard to fill out… or doesn’t have enough space for the things you really want to add. Maybe you received it as a gift and felt obligated to use it, even though you secretly despise the album and want to re-do it. Or, maybe it was poorly constructed causing the binding to come unglued and the pages are falling out. Or, it could be that your two-year-old spilled juice all over it and the pages are now water-warped.

Whatever the disaster may be, it could just be that your baby book simply stinks, and you want a new one, but you have a hard time justifying buying another because you have a perfectly…err… well, not so perfectly good one right now.

We want to hear your story. At BabySakes.com, we understand the importance of a good baby book – it’s the one baby item that your little one is still sure to treasure when they are all grown up. A family heirloom that will be passed down from generation to generation. Just think… one day, your words could be read by your great-great-great grandchildren as part of your family history. After all, it’s a keepsake that’s not to be taken lightly!

That’s why BabySakes.com provides a huge selection of the best baby books we can find with dozens of boutique brands and carefully crafted albums.

Now, back to your lousy book. In the comments below, please let us know why your baby book stinks and deserves to be replaced with a new one. You don’t have to say the brand of the book, or where you bought it…. just why you don’t like it. We will select an entry on September 12th to receive a $75.00 gift certificate towards the baby book of your choice – hooray! (complete rules here) The only catch is that you must report back to let us know which baby book you choose and how you like it when you receive it.

And, with your comments, we might all learn a thing or two about what makes a better baby book.

Which is the best baby book?
To make it even easier to select the perfect baby book, BabySakes.com is now collecting and posting customer reviews of the baby albums they have purchased. These now appear on the product page for each baby album for which reviews have been received. We do not filter these… if the review is negative, we want to know and we want you to know so that you can make the best decision when choosing an album. We even pass this info back to manufacturers to help them with their future products. Thanks to other Moms and Dads, you might just pick up a few tips on which baby memory book will be best for your family!

September 15, 2008 Update – And the Winners Are…
We have completed our drawing and the official winner from a random drawing is Bev, with comment #1. Bev wins the $75 gift certificate of a baby book of her choice! Hooray!

We appreciate all of the stories of your baby book disasters and can’t stand the thought of you all having to be stuck with them.  It’s just too heartbreaking! So, everybody else who submitted to this contest will receive a $30 gift certificate “bonus prize” for taking the time to share (as long as you meet eligibility requirements). We would love to have everybody report back on the baby album that you choose to see if you are able find the perfect baby book for you!