When it comes to keepsakes I’m a bit of a hoarder: basically I keep everything. I’ve kept every single item of clothing BB and Little B have ever had, I’ve never sold a piece of baby equipment or paraphernalia and both have memory boxes which contain everything from their hospital name tags to tickets from days out and random drawings and photos.

The trouble is there’s no order to either of the boxes – they basically contain a pile of stuff and all the dates and stories behind them are in my head. So when gift journal company from you to me got in touch to see if I’d like a copy of their Early Years Journal for Little B it was the perfect chance to get his bits and bobs in order.

The journal is a chance to record everything from birth up to five on beautifully illustrated hand-drawn pages. Instead of starting with the obvious – date and time of birth etc – it starts before that, with pages to stick scan photos on and sections including things I did and didn’t like when I was pregnant (I ate chicken soup like it was going out of fashion) and girls and boys names we considered, which is a really nice touch as it’s so easy to forget these things.

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The level of detail is lovely – ‘who cut the cord’, ‘who dressed you’ and ‘what you wore home’ – and this continues right up to the age of five. You can record each Christmas and birthday with who was there, what presents were received and where it was celebrated as well as every day memories such as favourite toys and what was going on in the news at the time.

For £19.99 the journal comes with a notebook you can keep to hand and use to record events and quotes as they happen, and I’m really looking forward to filling it in with Little B as he gets bigger. Ours is blue but there’s also a pink version, both of which would make a really thoughtful gift.