Do you still have your baby book? I have mine and it’s full of the most delightful information. It reminds me who my God-parents were, what gifts I received and who gave them. It documents things like my first smile, first tooth and first words. It’s a beautiful book full of illustrations, created in the style of the 1950s.

While it does have a lot of interesting information about my early days, it’s still quite sparse. New moms – even the stay-at-home ones – are much too busy to spend their days focused on a baby book (or multiple baby books as the family grows). What new moms need these days are smart phones with cameras – something that is handy at all times to capture the magic moments of babyhood. Combine that with some amazing apps and it’s easy to capture and share all kinds of family events. That’s all fine and dandy, but how do you keep all this information for future generations to enjoy?

This is where a digital journal can shine. Apps like Diaro [iOS & Android – $0.00 and $3.99 pro version] and Day One [Mac & iOS free or premium subscription] make it easy to capture, organize and share entries. These apps automatically add date, time and location to each entry along with tags to keep them organized. Want pictures in your journal entry? No problem! Take your pics from the app or import them from your photos app.

Journal entries like this one can be easily shared with others via email, text message or posted to a Tumblr blog.

The Day One app has a very useful advantage over most other journaling apps. It takes advantage of the Markdown standard for formatting. This means that your journal entries are “future proof”. That means that long after this program is obsolete, the journal entries you create will still be readable. To learn more about Markdown see the article Writing for the Future.

Another interesting app, Momento [iOS free and premium options] for the iPhone, gives you the ability to quickly take notes and include photos taken with the iPhone. It also imports content from a number of social media sites (Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, YouTube and more) so you can automatically “archive” all that content without duplicating your efforts. Although it doesn’t have a desktop version, there is a text/photo export option available.

A baby or family blog is another great way to capture and share special moments. Platforms like Posthaven ($5.00/mo) and Tumblr (free) make it easy to post photos, video and journal entries from your phone (or desktop) – usually as simple as sending an email. In addition, they offer the ability to automatically forward those posts to social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Tumblr offers free apps for iOS and Android devices to post content, follow and read content from other Tumblrs and comment on interesting posts. With Posthaven, the not-so-techie members of the family can be set up as email subscribers to receive updates via email. Commenting is as easy as replying to the posted message. Because they are so user friendly, these blog platforms are great ways for all members of the family to participate – both as commenters and as contributors.

Another advantage of a family blog is privacy. While posting information about family members – especially children – in social networks is easy, it is also dangerous. Posting names and birthdates on Facebook is an invitation for identity theft. It is also giving stalkers information about your children that they can use to convince a child they are not strangers. Both Tumblr and Posthaven offer private sites visible only to invited members.

These aren’t the only options available either. Visit your app store and see for yourself that there’s more than one way to capture, save and share those special family moments. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.