We’re thrilled to announce that Mixbook has new, beautiful baby photo book designs that are completely hip and beyond adorable: Chalkboard Baby (in pink or blue), Simple Baby (in pink or blue), Scrapbook Storybook (in pink or blue), and Woodland Baby. Each one has plenty of space to add photos that illustrate milestones, capture precious fingers and toes, honor special time with different family members, catalog a photo series, and add dimension with meaningful captions. Here are four ideas of ways to plan ahead to create your custom baby photo book if you have the time or desire to impose a unifying factor beyond the great Mixbook photo book design. If not, just skip right to “on the other hand” below, and start that baby photo book now!

One a Week Take one photo each week or each month using the same plain background. Use your baby photo book to document the subtle changes over the course of a year. Place a single unifying object like a favorite lovey within the frame of the picture for size reference. It’s fun watching the lovey get more “loved” as time passes.

Creative Captions Ask your friends and family members to write creative captions for the photos you plan to put in your photo book. Add each caption in quotes with the author’s name next to the picture. It’s a fun way include family and friends near and far in the process of your baby changing over time. It’s cool to see all the captions side-by-side now, and it’s really fun in the future to look back at the ways people interpreted your baby’s moods and expressions when he or she was so little. You might be surprised to learn that some early interpretations were crazy accurate!

Silly Meme Intersperse photos of your baby dressed up for the holidays. Change the dress-up theme each season, or go with one meme like a decorated headband for each holiday. To create custom headbands simply have fun with cut felt, ribbons, decorations, elastic bands and a glue gun (for the headband not your baby). Just make sure you’re keeping a close eye during the photo shoot, since most babies tend to confuse headpieces for food.

One Color If you have a favorite color, or if your baby looks particularly fetching in a certain hue, try doing all your photography for the book over the course of a year with baby wearing clothing in a specific color scheme. A full year of baby dressed in nothing but white Onesies or pink leggings is ridiculously adorable.

On the other hand… If the idea of planning ahead to create a theme makes you spiral into either unhinged hilarity or torrents of tears, take a deep breath. Here’s what really matters:

You’re baby is perfect, that’s a fact. So it’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that a photo book about your baby has to be perfect to match. But, take it from us: the pictures don’t have to be perfect. The chronology doesn’t have to be perfect. The lighting doesn’t have to be perfect. And the wardrobe doesn’t have to be perfect. Just choose a perfect Mixbook baby book theme, and make it happen.

Time sometimes drags when you have a little baby, but before you know it, time does something bizarre and your kids are halfway grown up. So make the baby books early and often so you have them and they have them for life.

Happy Mixbooking! Happy Baby Photo Book–Making!