They won’t remember this year. You will.
Record a video for your baby today and schedule it for their fifth birthday, their first day of school, their eighteenth. A time capsule they can watch, in the voice you have right now.
“This is your mother, twenty-six hours after you arrived. You are asleep on my chest and I promised you’d hear this exact voice one day, not the tired retelling of it.”
“Your father cried in the hospital parking garage. He will deny this for the rest of his life. This video is the evidence.”
“Six things I want you to know before the world starts telling you things.”
Three steps, then time does the rest.
Record while it’s true
The 3 a.m. feeds, the first laugh, the way you feel this exact week. Record it on your phone before it becomes a story you tell instead of a thing you remember.
Pick the birthday
Their fifth, their sixteenth, their eighteenth. Pick a date years or decades out. We hold the video, locked, until then.
We deliver it
On the date you chose, the video arrives by email, ready to watch. From the parent you were to the person they became.
How to make a video time capsule for your baby
You don’t need equipment or a plan. Your phone camera, two or three minutes, and the room you’re actually in. Record while the baby naps, or while they’re on your chest. Upload the video, pick the date it should arrive — a fifth birthday, a graduation morning, the day they turn eighteen — and choose whether to lock it. Locked videos seal after 72 hours and stay sealed until delivery, which turns an ordinary clip into something closer to a letter in a vault. That’s the whole process. The hard part isn’t technical; it’s pressing record before the week gets away from you.
What to say in a message your child will watch at 18
The temptation is to write a speech. Resist it. What ages best is the ordinary: what their nursery smells like, what they do with their hands when they sleep, which lullaby is failing tonight, what you and their other parent argued about at the crib assembly stage. Eighteen-year-olds have heard the polished stories a hundred times — what they’ve never seen is the unedited version of you at the beginning. Say what you hope for them, sure. But mostly, just be the person you are this week. That person is the one who disappears into the retelling.
One video every birthday: the tradition version
Plenty of parents make it annual: one short video on each birthday, every one scheduled for the same morning eighteen years in. The result is a stack of envelopes that all come due at once — you at every age they’ve been, arriving on the day they become an adult. Each video takes five minutes to record. The full collection takes eighteen years, which is the point: it’s the only gift that literally cannot be bought later.
My baby doesn’t have an email address. How does delivery work?
Most parents schedule delivery to their own email and plan the moment of showing it. On Premium you can schedule to any address, so if your child has an email by the delivery date, you can schedule it straight to them.
Can I really schedule a video 18 years ahead?
Yes. Pick any date, next year or decades out. Your video lives on durable cloud storage and we intend to honor every scheduled date. If we ever needed to wind down, you’d get notice and an export option.
Can I add more videos as they grow up?
Yes. Many parents record one each birthday, a small stack of time capsules that all come due at eighteen. Each video gets its own delivery date.
What if I want to watch it again before the date?
When you schedule a video, you choose whether to lock it. Locked videos stay watchable for 72 hours, then seal until the delivery date. If you’d rather keep access, simply don’t lock it.
The person they’ll become is going to want to meet you.
Start scheduling — it’s free