Make a baby's first-year video and book on iPhone

Most parents plan to make one, and then sit down on the first birthday to scroll back through the phone. By then the photos are there, but the dates, the first words and who took the picture are gone.

• The pictures are mixed in with thousands of others, so “the pictures from month 4” is hard to find.
• There are no notes with them, so the video is a string of nice photos without a story.
• Everyone holds half: mom's photos on mom's phone, dad's on dad's, grandparents' sent in a chat.
• Doing it all in one go at the end becomes a big project, so it gets postponed.

The fix is a small monthly habit, so that at the end of the year it is one button.

There are two practical ways. The first uses the Photos app you already have: create an album called “First year”, drop a few favorites into it each month, and use the Photos app's memory-movie feature on that album or person. It is free and built in. The downside is that it knows nothing about monthly birthdays, measurements or milestones, and it has no captions unless you add them.

The second is a log made for babies, where each moment already carries its photo, date and note. Here are the steps in Baton.

1. 1Whenever something is worth keeping, open the Moments tab, tap New moment, write one line, add up to four photos and set the date. If it is a milestone such as First smile or Rolls over, you can pick it too.
2. 2On each monthly birthday, look at Baton's Monthly card: one picture with that month's photos, the age, the latest measurements and the milestones. You can turn on a gentle reminder at 10:00 on each monthly birthday; it is off by default.
3. 3When you want the book and video, go to Moments and tap Recap book & video, or tap Make this month's recap on a Monthly card.
4. 4Choose the months: First year, Last 3 months, or Choose to set a start and end month (months 1 to 24).
5. 5Tap a photo to put it on the cover.
6. 6For the photo book, pick A4 or 20 × 20 cm, tap Preview to flip through it, then Share PDF to send it to Files, AirDrop or a print shop.
7. 7For the video, tap to make it, wait while Baton builds it, then share it or Save to Photos.

Everything comes from what you already logged, so there is nothing to retype.

• Photo book (PDF): a cover, one spread per month (the month's dates, milestones, growth measurements, and photos with their captions or lines from the diary), and a page of numbers at the end.
• The numbers page counts feeds, diapers changed, moments and milestones, the weight from start to end, and who logged. Anything you did not log is left out rather than printed as zero.
• Video: vertical 9:16, up to 60 seconds, with slowly drifting photos, month titles, the numbers, and a soft tune the app makes on your phone rather than a stock track.
• The book is sized for photobook printing. You can take the PDF to any photo printer or book service you like; Baton does not sell printed books.

The numbers are only a count of your own log, kept as a memory, not an assessment of how your baby is developing. If you have a question about weight or development, ask your pediatrician.

• Free: saving moments (the first 20), the Monthly card, previewing the book and video for any months, and sharing up to 3 months with a small “Made with Baton” mark.
• Baton Plus (optional): unlimited moments, and exporting every month, book and video, without the mark. Prices and what renews are in the Pricing section on the home page.
• Private: the book and video are made on your iPhone, and nothing leaves it unless you share it. Photos you pick with the iOS photo picker are resized, stripped of location data and kept in your own iCloud with your log. Baton has no account, no ads and no tracking.

Baton keeps one log for both parents through each person's own iCloud. Once your partner is invited they can add moments from their own iPhone, and each moment says “by Mom” or “by Dad”. The end-of-year book has both your pictures, and its last page names the people who logged.

Grandparents or a nanny can be invited with view only: they can see the moments but change nothing. If they send pictures in a chat, save them and add them to a moment so they appear in the book.

• Pick a fixed day each month, such as the monthly birthday, to choose 3 to 5 photos.
• Photograph the same corner of the house or the same teddy next to your baby each month; side by side you see how much they have grown.
• Write one short line: something your baby did for the first time, or a word they said. One line is enough.
• Leave a month empty if it was all sleeping and feeding; the book still has that month's page.
• If you prefer paper, a small notebook with one page per month and one printed photo stuck in is a lovely keepsake too.