How to Make a Pregnancy Due-Date Calendar

There are countless ways to create a pregnancy due-date calendar that showcases your creativity. Below, I will give you several ideas to get started. Some things to remember, whatever you choose to do, are:

Make sure that your calendar has the ability to be flexible, either by adding to it or having space to record being "past due." It's not fun to think about, but it does happen for a lot of pregnancies, and due dates may change through the course of the pregnancy.

If you have other children, be sure to get them involved somehow, either by helping make the calendar, helping with the countdown, or drawing pictures to include.

Be sure to take pictures of the countdown, or create a keepsake for your future son or daughter that will go with his or her baby book.

Use beads. There are a variety of ways to make a beaded pregnancy calendar. One way is to make a bracelet or necklace that you can wear out of small beads - any style you like - and remove one bead each day, so that as you get closer to your due date, you have fewer and fewer beads. To make a wearable piece of jewelry, be sure to choose a chain that will look nice with only a few beads left on it. A variation on this would be to have one bead for each week that you remove. You can also use a beaded string without wearing it.

If you have other children, have them help you use a paper chain for a calendar. Use one color for the beginning of each week to help you keep your place (example: purple on Sunday, blue for Monday through Saturday). You can customize the colors to match the nursery or the gender of the coming baby. If you are doing this to help children count down, be sure to include more weeks than you think you'll need - go up to forty-two weeks - so that they aren't disappointed if the baby doesn't come right at the due date. Take off one link each day.

Personalize a calendar. If the pregnancy will overlap a calendar year, use a birthday calendar or a customizable calendar so that the days match up correctly. Use this calendar to record everything about the baby - when you first felt it move, doctor's appointments, and so on - to create a keepsake pregnancy calendar that your child can have along with his or her baby book.

Head off questions before they start by making a t-shirt. Use fabric markers and iron-on printer paper to create a weekly countdown. Also include "It's a boy," "It's a girl," or "It's a surprise," to answer the two big questions before they're asked.