Taking care of a new baby is an exhausting and overwhelming responsibility and leaves little time to stay in touch with far-flung friends and family.

That’s why the best idea for new parents is to make a Shutterfly Share site—a secure, personal family website that is easy to create and customize. Connect and communicate with everyone and let them share the joy of your baby’s first year. More than a place to show pictures, Share sites have a number of great features. You can create a journal to remember milestones, add links to a registry for baby gifts, embed video from a video site and much more. Invite those closest to you to be Site members—they’ll automatically get notified about new pictures and changes to your family website.

Tips for setting up your Share site:

• Set up the website well before the due date. Obviously, you’ll be less stressed and have more time to choose a design, add features and invite members before baby is around. Plus, you can add pictures from your baby shower and create links to your baby registry.
• Set the permission levels on your site so that only the people you want to see the pictures can have access. Ensure privacy by limiting access to members only or creating an optional password for all visitors.
• Invite loved ones who have seen (and taken snapshots of) the baby to become members of your family website, and then give them “Contributor” privileges so they can upload their pictures. The more photographers, the more pictures!
• Make it easy for site members to follow your baby’s growth. Create a separate album or site page for each milestone: the day of birth, one week, six weeks, twelve weeks, etc. You can even take regularly scheduled pictures of your baby in the same place and with the same backdrop, so everyone can see how your child is growing and changing.
  
  

  Visit our tutorial on How to create a family website for step-by-step details or refer to our Share Central site for Frequently Asked Questions.