Document Your Pregnancy Week by Week with Our Pregnancy Chalkboard Tutorial!

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I knew I wanted to document the pregnancy and my growing belly. I'd seen pregnancy chalkboard photos on Pinterest so I figured that would be something fun I could do to commemorate each stage of the 40+ week journey. You can choose to document your pregnancy week by week or monthly. Here's how I did it!

I went to our local craft store to buy a chalkboard and some chalkboard markers. The board I got is about 24" by 36" but you could really use any size. I actually purchased a couple of smaller packs of the markers but ended up spending quite a bit more. I wish I'd just bought them from Amazon and gotten the larger variety. I was just too excited to get started and didn't want to wait even for two-day shipping! I put hooks on the back of my board and used some yarn to make hangers. If I would have known these would be shown to a broader audience I would have spent more time constructing them, ha! We have built-in shelving in our dining room so I used two of our stocking hangers to hold the board up.

Here are some of my first boards from my third pregnancy. I thought about posting the photos from my first pregnancy also, but to show a good progression I figured I'd stick to just one pregnancy. I meant to start at 12 weeks with the chalkboards but time got away from me! It'll do that when you've got all-day "morning" sickness and a three year old. 😉

I wanted all of my boards to be different and really reflect something about each stage of pregnancy that I was in. I used the fruit and veggie comparisons on babycenter.com when I wanted to post about baby's size. The rainbow in the corner of each board is because we lost a baby boy at 21 weeks prior to my third pregnancy, so this was our rainbow baby.

I did the chalkboards every four weeks until I hit week 36-then I did them each week until baby came. I'd take a photo of myself with the board, a photo with me and my husband together, and for my third pregnancy I'd take one with my husband, daughter, and myself with the board. It's so fun to look back on the progression of my pregnancies and remember each stage. I also enjoy laughing (not at the time, but now) at how big my nose got because of water retention. I hated all photos of myself from weeks 36+, but I look back now in awe of my body, no matter how unhappy I was with it at the time!

If I couldn't think of anything eventful to put on the sign, I'd look up characteristics that were forming that week. If I had an ultrasound or midwife appointment I'd try to include something like heart rate or baby's approximate size. If there was a holiday I'd put something related to that (I kept hoping I'd go into labor on Thanksgiving the third time around, but no such luck. Baby stayed in for another two weeks and one day!).

Pregnancy week by week

I'm not a particularly crafty person so I would search online for cool handwriting fonts or pictures of things I'd want to include, and I'd do my best to mimic them on my board. It was fun coming up with the design for each board, though by about week 38 I was always hoping baby would come before I'd have to make weeks 39 and 40.

The great thing about this chalkboard is that I still use it even after my pregnancies. I used it on my daughter's third birthday to write out some of her favorite things to display at her birthday party. She also loves to draw on it with sidewalk chalk or paint on it with water (less messy than paint!). It's really easy to clean up. I'd just wash it with warm soapy water right after we took the photos. If I left the paint on the board for the four weeks in between, though, it was much harder to get off.

I love seeing the progression of each pregnancy and how it was different each time. Did you do something to document your pregnancy week by week? I'd love to hear about it!

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