One of the biggest challenges for working parents is the feeling that they might be missing out on their children’s special moments throughout the day. Even when parents have total confidence in their caregivers and feel great about their careers, there’s still that little voice in the back of their minds that wonders if they’re seeing every milestone and capturing timeless memories. Luckily, you can help with that, nanny! One of the easiest ways to help parents feel more in the loop is by taking and sharing lots of photos of their children. And thanks to the internet, there are more ways than ever to capture and organize those photos so parents don’t miss out on a single moment. Here are five creative ideas to try:
Shared Photo Albums
An easy and user-friendly way to share memories is to set up a shared folder on a file hosting service like Dropbox. Dropbox allows multiple users to add photos, videos, etc. and provides instant access to all media once it’s uploaded. To do this, have both users create separate accounts—the accounts include 2GB of free storage, with options to upgrade beyond that—and once they’re created, you can share folders between accounts. Parents can pop into the folders whenever they want and see all the latest photos of their children. Another option for folks with Apple products is to set up a shared photo album. If you and your nanny family both use Apple devices, you can adjust the settings of a designated album to make it a shared album via iCloud for easy viewing from multiple devices.
Smart Digital Frame
There are a number of smart digital frames available that can be updated instantly by sending photos to a unique email address associated with the frame. The Skylight and the Aura are two of the most popular versions options. Parents can keep the frame close by and instantly get new photos of their children as they’re added to the frame’s stored files throughout the day.
Monthly or Seasonal Photo Books
Photo books are a great way to create keepsakes from digital photos. Many families use services like Chatbooks or Artifact Uprising to create “yearbooks” of their family adventures, but monthly or seasonal photo books might be appreciated, too. For example, a cute book capturing all the activities of December or everything the children have been up to during the springtime is a great way to help parents get more of a month-in-review-style update.
Photo Apps
There are tons apps that are great for helping families organize and share photos, and nannies can certainly take advantage of them, as well. Google Photos, which has app and web browser options, is a great option for sharing photos! Similarly to iCloud, Google Photos allows users to share photos and folders with its user-friendly design. Collect is a digital photo journal that can be used to create a photo-a-day project, capturing one awesome kid photo daily, or just for capturing memories anytime. If you want to get the kids in on the action, there’s also First Camera. The app has oversized buttons and stickers so kids can capture their own experiences and edit the photos however they’d like. Plus, the app stores the photos in-app, so your regular photo storage won’t get clogged with the photos the children take.
Weekly Recaps
At the end of each week, put together a weekly email “report” featuring highlights from the previous week. This once weekly email (sent out on Fridays, perhaps) could quickly sum up the activities you and the children engaged in during the week, as well as any sweet moments that stood out in your mind. You could even include some funny kid quotes from the week. Use a service like Mail Chimp for great templates and to schedule the emails in advance, allowing you to add to them each day and avoiding a build-up of to-dos come Friday.