Do you keep a photo album for your kid ? | Autism PDD

I havent yet done an album for any of my kids and there are significant gaps in photo taking consistent with Lachlans diagnosis. I will do it however (when I get time!)

I think if I wasn't to put in photos of Lachlan lining up cars etc.......I wouldn't be capturing the essence of WHO Lachlan is. Just as I would put in photos of my daughters obsessions with dolls and makeup, I think it's important to highlight the whole picture, even if for nothing more than we have something to reflect on when we are older.

Mysh

Well I have baby books for both my kids - one thing I've accomplished these last 6 years! My ds' is much more complete than my dd's. In fact, there are probably way less pictures of her than of him! But, both of them like to look at their baby books.

I completely am with the poster who hasn't even done her wedding pictures yet! I at least did that - but haven't done anything post-honeymoon, and we've been married 12 years!

I did start a baby photo album for both kids and that's as far as I've gotten. Also did a calendar of their first year with pictures included for each month. I don't do scrapbooking so I don't have any other pictures even remotely organized. I keep thinking that some day when I am sick that I will do that - that's what I used to do before kids. I think I have to re-think that - because even when I'm sick, I still have to be mom!

I DO however, make little bitty photo albums (the cheapie ones you can buy at the counter at Walmart's photo center) from say our beach vacation, or a back to school mini album (new teachers, old bus driver, us waving to him out front, etc).

I find that these little contemporary photo albums are a lot happier to build, plus they can go to school in your kids backpack and work as an icebreaker. They're not as intensive as social stories, but a nice collection of themes or memories. This is the whole reason I build them. Sometimes I print these out myself in the tiny 3x3 photos per page option, then send the loose 9 in a ziploc. I have the teacher or speech gal make him organize them chronologically, then tell the story of what happened. He can speak for ages with this kind of help.

When I look back at the ones I did two years ago, they make me SMILE! No angst, no what-ifs, just happy thoughts. Do the baby ones when they start puberty and you want to sell them to the gypsies. You will need to remember how cute they were at that point!

One of my hobbies is digital scrapbooking. Another hobby is photography. I started scrapbooking 2 years ago and I now have scrapbooks from the day the boys were born through March of this year. I'm always running a few months behind! I print out the pages and the boys go through them all the time. Since they are all on the computer, if the kids should tear a page it isn't a loss, I just print a replacement page.

Sometimes C will take a scrapbook to therapy with him and his speech therapist will use it as a tool to engage him in conversation about vacations we've taken, people in the family, etc. The kids LOVE the "picture books."

I don't keep separate books for each child, it's just the "family scrapbook." I'm up to about 6 binders now (about 450 scrapbook pages). When the kids are older I'll reproduce an entire set for each of them.

It seems so sad that someone wouldn't keep a baby book for their child with Autism. But that said, both of my kids' books are nearly empty!

Not because I didn't want to record the stuff, I've just always been terrible about recording events in my life. I'm also terrible about photo albums. I take a lot of pictures, but most of the kid's pictures are still on CD. I've been so busy since my son was born with him and his sister, plus a large variety of foster children, I just haven't had time for books and photo albums.

Plus, because my children came from foster care, there was a lot of information that didn't apply to us. Maybe one day, I'll get it all down.

I read on another board that some moms stopped doing baby albums
because the increasing missing milestones just left them too depressed.

I just yesterday got my box of loose pictures out to put in the albums and
I feel somewhat at a loss. I do want to make an album for all of my kids.
But I guess I am not so sure anymore that my ds will be interested in it
as he gets older. I will do it just-in-case.
But what do I put in? All the ususal stuff of holidays and classpictures? He
hardly recognizes his classmates faces now - will he care later? What is
interesting to him? The buildings we lived in? His (very asd looking) art?
Do I put pictures of the autism picnic in - will that feel affirming or
depressing to him in later years?
I guess part of the problem is that I have a hard time guessing what his
adult years will look like.

Are you making baby albums for your kids?
What pictures do you include (like lining up toys, stimming or only
pictures that capture less of asd) ?
Do you include pictures of stuff that are not 'traditional' but important to
your kid (like picture of the stick collection) ?

I am not looking for a 'right' way to do a album. Just curious what others
are doing.
If any of the adults with asd on this board feel like answering : I'd be
interested to hear what you like/would have liked in your childhood
album.

I do scrapbooking...I have started a book for each kid...I don't know if it will be something that I can pass down to Mason the way I am planning to pass it down to the other kids, that is if I can part with the books when the kids are older, lol.

I like the scrapbooking better than the babybook bcuz I choose what to put in there rather than the preset things in those kinds of books. Mason's book has a lot of things that he does enjoy like swinging, playing on his rocking horse, even playing computer games and video games...he loves McDonalds so I even made a page of him eating his favorite thing! I have just as many pages in Mason's book as I do in the other kids' books...I guess with Mason's it's just not as broad as far as maybe sports etc. I did make him a kindergarten page but I put his school picture a painted handprint and a copy of his name that he wrote...I left out the class picture, bcuz he couldn't tell me any of the kids names, but it is still as nice as the other kids' school pages!

I did make an "autism" page...I didn't label it as autism or anything but I took pictures of Mason and then put his traits and characteristics in puzzle pieces all around the pictures...it fits him so well with the puzzle pieces!

emerald_52139295.354837963I do a scrapbook as well...the preset notions were too much for me. I put EVERYTHING in there. Disney tix stubs, report cards, pictures of EVERYONE. I keep a photo album for my son. I think I do it more for myself than for him. I enjoy looking back at his life and remember what he was like when he was very little. Actually I think the moms care more about the books than the kids. I include all of his pictures because they are apart of who he is. I agree with My Heart--there are quite a few pics of Mason when he is younger where he isn't smiling or even looking at the camera but that is who is was/is so even though those pics aren't as photogenic as my other kids, I still include them! And with the scrapbooking around the photo's in all honesty it makes even my bad photography skills look good, lol.I don't have an album yet for Don, but I've got about a gazillion pics on
disks, etc, which I plan to eventually use in an album.

I think I'll just include pictures where he looks happy and is doing what he
loves - pictures that capture "him" whether that includes autism or not. Pics
like the ones in my sig

Heck, I haven't even gotten my wedding pictures into an album and we're having our 10th anniversary next week.

I started keeping a monthly baby diary with 1-1/2 pages of text plus a photo, but fell quickly behind. What I do have is fun to look back at, though.

So what we've ended up with is our online photo album, with updates at least 4 times a year. It has lots of text, but nothing about autism since it's public. My son enjoys looking at the pictures of me, and takes pride in a lot of them.

I did do a typical baby book, there are a few things left blank, or adapted to them. The pages of who visited me in the hospital I put pages of first visitors because they were in the NICU for over a month and they had no visitors in the hospital. Things like that. The first words part is still blank, I waited soooo long for that first word by the time it came at like age 2 or 3 I forgot to write it in there. I'm kind of glad I did that now cause I always get questions like how old were they when they rolled over/ sat up/ walked and I can go look it up. There aren't that many pictures in there though, just a few. Most of the pictures are in a scrap book that starts with their birth story, and I include any pictures that pertains to them and their lives from babyhood on. I have a lot of pictures of spinning wheels between 1 and 2 years old and they are all in there along with their smiling beaming faces. Lots of bouncing pictures too. I started them long before I ever heard the word ASD and didn't think twice about those pictures at the time, they spent alot of time doing that and I think I even commented that in the book, but I made them with the intention I would give them the albums one day, I have no idea if they will be interested in them when they are older, but I figure if not then they are for me. I do enjoy looking at them myself and I have a lot of fun putting them together, so I keep the albums going. So personally yes I would put in the picture of the stick collection and lining up toys since that is part of his life. I wouldn't dominate it with them though. For me personally the ASD factor doesn't affect what I put or don't put in the album just like it didn't effect rather or not I did a baby book. That's just me though, I can understand how it could be depressing.

I have an album of just pictures and a scrapbook of the 1st year of school.

My son LOVES>>>>>>>> to look at these pictures. Loves , loves loves. He names the people in the pictures , he looks at himself. He used to say "boy" now he says his name. I put everything inside. The good, bad, and the ugly. One day when he understands emotion, I'll ask him "are you happy, sad...etc? in the picture" but for now I think he feels inportant/loved seeing all these pictures of himself.

We have many little albums of Sarah and her sis...she loves to look at them and ask me questions about them.

The 5 year baby book is sad though and I kinda stopped at the 3 year old mark after she got diagnosed because I was too depressed to record anything.

I kept baby books, keepsake boxes, and photo albums for each of the boys. In the keepsake boxes, I put their little hats from the hospital, their hospital identification bracelet, their first booties, the outfit they were baptized in, all the congratulatory cards we received when they were born, and little engraved items they received as gifts.

I've never scrapbooked, but I have made simple photo albums for each of the boys. I got a good leather album, and in it I put all of their professional portraits. I also added their ulta sound pictures, a photo of me pregnant with them, and the best of the candid shots taken from each year of their life. I think I will add a photo of our home, and make sure pet photos make it into the book.

My kids love seeing pictures of themselves. However, I don't think they're going to want volumes of albums for themselves when they are grown. I've really edited their albums so they'll end up with a couple. If they end up wanting more later, they can always look through all of mine.

I've actually taken parts of the photo album and it is used in his therapy as his "All About Me" social story and pictures. It is one of the objectives of his IEP this coming year, so I created one in PowerPoint using family photos - "I am Mr. B., I am 3 years old, I am a boy, I have 3 sisters. This is Sister A, Sister B, Sister C. , etc. with the proper photos included... then "I like trains (of course), etc.," printed it all out, laminated and spiral bound it, and it's his "All About Me" book. I've also animated the Powerpoint into an interactive he can do on the computer at home - which he loves.

We did one in preparation for traveling to family over the 4th of July - included his cousins, grandparents, etc. and it worked great - he loved the photos, and recognized everyone by the time we arrived.