"My daughter Lily‘s the oldest, and by the time she was six months, we just had books of photos. Poor little Maeve, who’s six months old now … My mom hasn’t met her yet, and last night she said, ‘Show me some pictures!’ I’m looking through my phone like, ‘Well, I got a couple, but they’re from two months ago…’"
— Chris O’Donnell, appearing on Regis & Kelly, tells Kelly Ripa about one of the drawbacks to having five kids.
Photo by WENN.
That is so true. I only have two kids, but I have very few pictures of my youngest (who’s 4). I also stumbled across my older son’s (he’s 9) baby book last night. It has everything painstakingly notated, but I’m not even sure my youngest HAS a baby book. There’s also boogers on the ceiling, Legos all over the floor and banana peels under the couch, so there is that….
(I’m totally kidding. I cleaned up the banana peels up like a week ago.)
- Some Mama on
Aww poor little Maeve, she’ll hate that when she’s older. My late grandfather videoed us, from when I was a newborn right up until 4 months before my brother was born (I was 5, my sisters were almost 4 and 2). His camcorder broke, and he just never bought another one. My brother is 15 now, and gets upset if we watch these videos now, because he doesn’t have one and is angry that my grandfather didn’t replace his camcorder even though he knew there was shortly to be another grandchild. We’ve got lots and lots of photos of him as a baby, but it doesn’t make up for it in his mind.
As for baby books, it’s the same thing! My mum had a joint one of our progress, goes right up to 7 for me, and 18 months for my brother, because she stopped writing at about the same time.
Being the eldest has its advantages 
- Rachel-Jane on
I think it’s the same in all families. My older sister also has many more baby photos than I have.
- Sarita on
My husband is the youngest of 8 and the only pictures we have of him are his elementary school pictures. We have no idea what he looked like as a baby up until he was about 5 years old. When we had our second child, he made sure we not only had pictures of the baby, but pictures of him by himself and not always with his older brother right next to him…hopefully the O’Donnells will catch some photos of Maeve before it’s too late!
- SY on
Ha!! Yeah I’m the oldest and I totally joke to my little sis about how FAT my baby album is! She rolls her eyes and then I remind her that at least u got the videocamera footage! My parents didn’t have that back in the seventies! I’m 29 and my sis is 25 now.
- janet on
I’m the youngest of 9, so yeah, no pictures lol.
- Sarah on
I think that’s pretty sad. In this day and age with digital cameras everywhere… well, I think every sibling deserves a well documented childhood.
- Hea on
Hmm, weird to me. I wonder why she hasn’t met grandma yet? I am a camera freak, so I know there will be no shortage of baby pics…right now, i just photograph my cat:)
- bethany on
Same here…I’m the oldest and there’s tons of photos of me from day one up until my sister came. She has barely any
I think it’s that way with every family. The excitement and newness of having a new baby…you just want to document every thing. When you have the second you’ve already done it…u know what to expect and such. Plus, I think it has alot to do with not having time…with one kid it’s easy but 2 is different.
- ERICKA on
I think the saddest thing is that baby havent meet her grandma yet! She`s six months old! Grandparents have a right to be involved in their grandchildrens life from the very begining. And that there`s almost no photos of this babygirl, so they cant even give grandma a recent photo of her.. it all sounds weird to me.
- Tanya on
I’m the youngest of 4, and I can count the pictures of me as a baby on one hand. But with my kids I’m gonna make sure theres at least photos documenting special events. So that if I have more than one kid, when they are grown they each have a good amount of baby pictures.
- Tone on
Tanya, do you have kids? It doesn’t sound like they’re saying Grandma can’t be a part of Maeve’s life, people have lives and sometimes can’t go to visit their grandkids. My parents have seen my 8 month old a grand total of 2 times, and my mother-in-law has only seen her once (the week she was born.) There’s nothing fishy going on, the more kids you have the less time you have for snapping pictures because you’re busy telling the older ones they can or can’t do something. My 3 year old tries to bogart the shots (get in front of the baby), or completely acts up if she’s not getting her picture taken, so it’s a real challenge to get pictures of my 8 month old alone. I know I’m not the first person to have problems like this, other parents have the same problem with their children as well.
- Rebecca on
chris should just go out in public with the baby and then send the paparazzi’s celebrity-babies.com link to his mom. as a celebrity, it doesn’t seem so hard to get a quick photo!
- courtney on
Rebecca- ITA! However, my family seems to be one of the weird exceptions to the rule. My brother and I each have about the same amount of baby pictures, and we each have a pretty-well completed baby book.
All of that said, reading the comment about: “…on the drawbacks of five kids”, makes me think of the Jolie-Pitts. I wonder if the twins will have a lot less baby pictures than Maddox (in their private family photo albums, I mean. I’m not referring to or counting paparazzi shots or magazine photo shoots!)?
- CelebBabyLover on
Instead of baby books, a friend’s father made life albums and presented them to the child on their graduation from high school. It was a gift they all looked forward to, and you have the advantage of many years to complete it!
- Cheryl on
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