The Short Years FAQ
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If you can find five minutes a week to answer a few questions and upload a photo from your phone, then you can have a completed baby book! Many of our customers say they work on their pages while feeding their baby or watching a show on Netflix.
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Consider the time, energy, and stress you will save by using The Short Years Baby Book App and the fact that you’ll actually end up with a completed baby book. Account for the fact that you won’t be paying for the printing and shipping of hundreds of photos to add to a traditional baby book or the adhesive, pens, and other supplies needed for them. There’s of course no price tag you can put on capturing your baby’s precious moments, but The Short Years Baby Book and App is a great value for all that is included and it’s an investment you’ll always be thankful you made.
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One of our parents’ favorite features of The Short Years is that they can preview the pages and see exactly what they will look like before sending them to print using the “Page Edit Mode” feature. This way, you can ensure that your baby book will be exactly as beautiful as you envisioned.
Click here to see an example of what the pages look like.
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Nope! Download the app for free, and start using it to document your little one's special moments today.
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Yes! The Short Years Baby Book makes the perfect gift for the new parent in your life. There are two gift options: 1) Buy an eGift Card for your loved one or 2) Purchase the book itself for the gift recipient. You can enter her address in the “shipping address” section at checkout or you can have the book shipped to you and give it to her in person. All of our baby books come gift-wrapped! If you buy the book itself as a gift, just give the recipient the Access Key that you receive in your email.
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If you discover a mistake in your pages when they arrive, you can order a reprint from within the app. Tap "Chapters" and scroll to the bottom where previously ordered chapters are listed. Tap the chapter with the mistake. Tap "Buy Reprints" to purchase your reprint. Edit the mistake and then resubmit that chapter for print! We'll print and ship a new copy to you to add to your book.
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Yes! The Short Years Baby Book is a great option for families formed through infant adoption! When you create your child's account in the App, just select “adoption.”
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Absolutely! It’s never too late to create a beautiful baby book for your child. We have lots of parents working on baby books for their toddlers or older children. Once you’ve created your account, just go to the “Chapters” tab in the App and select the chapter you’d like to work on first. You can select “Page Edit Mode” to view the chapter as a whole and add your photos and text directly to the pages!
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Perfect! The Short Years Baby Book App is designed to allow you to work on baby books for multiple children at the same time. Just tap the plus (+) icon in the top right corner of the "Chapters" tab to add your second child (to get to the Chapters tab, tap on "Chapters"--it's the bottom, middle option)! You can toggle between your two (or more) children's books by tapping the circle with their photo in it on the Chapters tab. Tap the plus icon again to add additional children.
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Once completed, your book will consist of nineteen chapters (all included at the base price), covering topics like: pregnancy or adoption, birth, baby's family, milestones, baby's first birthday, and one chapter devoted to the sweet moments of each month of baby's first year.
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If your book is damaged or defective, please send us a message within one week of receiving it so we can make it right! If you would like to return your book because you don’t love it, you can do so up until 30 days after the date of your order. Books must be unused and in original condition. In these situations, the customer is responsible for the cost of return shipping.
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We offer a one-time price adjustment if an item is marked down within the 7 days following your order.
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When it comes to baby ages, some people use months and some use weeks, so we made the book work for both!
With our latest app update (released mid-July 2025), we've made some changes to clear up confusion around the Newborn and Month 1 chapters. Here's a quick breakdown of how it works now:
Newborn is now just a photo chapter.
Month 1 now covers 0–4 weeks, and each prompt card includes specific dates to show exactly what time frame is covered.
This update only applies to children's profiles created after the update. If your child’s profile was created before mid-July, don’t worry—your existing setup is still totally valid, and nothing is “messed up.”
If you've already made good progress on your book, there's no need to redo anything. You can continue using the timeline from the previous system. To help with that, we’ve made a simple chart (based on a baby born January 1st) that shows how the months align:
Old System Timeline
Based on Jan. 1 birthdate:Newborn: Weeks 0–4 → Jan 1–Feb 1
Month 1: Weeks 4–8 → Feb 1–Mar 1
Month 2: Weeks 8–12 → Mar 1–Apr 1
Month 3: Weeks 12–16 → Apr 1–May 1
Month 4: Weeks 16–20 → May 1–Jun 1
…and so on.
It's usually easiest to just look at your baby’s birthdate and use that as a guide instead of tracking weeks, but feel free to use whatever works best for you!
If you'd like us to switch your child's profile to the new system, just send us a message! Just a heads-up: if you’ve entered any text in the Newborn chapter, it will be lost during the switch.
More Questions?
