Great Ways to Stay Connected During a Pandemic

Staying in touch with family and friends has been at the forefront for me since the pandemic began. I wanted to find a way to share all of the pictures I have taken of our new little love with family and friends, even if I can’t see them in person for months! Pictures run in my blood (my poppee was a photographer and my mom lives for taking a million photos) so naturally my camera roll on my phone is FILLED with so many pictures, so I wanted to find ways to share these with those closest to me!

I wanted to share all the ways we’ve been able to stay in touch, mainly through pictures, with those we love during such a happy time (the first few months of our daughter’s life) and difficult time (a pandemic). Other than my private personal instagram and FaceTime, below are the 3 ways we’ve enjoyed sharing our daughter with loved ones:

Tiny Beans

I first heard of tiny beans when my cousin had her first baby a few years ago. Even though we were not in a pandemic and it was easier to get together, this app was still a great way to stay connected when we weren’t able to get together. So of course when I had my daughter during a pandemic and couldn’t easily get together with family and friends, I thought what better way to share M and her milestones than to use this app! All you’ll need is the email addresses of those you want to share pictures with and they don’t even need to download the app. They will receive an email with photos so they can view everything there! They can interact with you by liking each photo or commenting on them. It is so easy to upload pictures and videos, and I definitely share more on Tiny Beans than I do on instagram. Also, if you have other people’s tiny bean accounts in your app, you can easily go between your own photos and the other accounts [I can easily view my cousins pictures just by switching the account at the top.] Best part is the app is free!

Lastly, if you read my previous post about why I’m choosing to keep my daughter’s face off the internet publicly, then you’ll want to read this Red Tricycle article that discusses things to consider before posting your child’s picture on the internet!

Chatbook Mini’s

This might be my favorite way to share photos with loved ones since I love that fact that it’s something tangible! We set up chatbook monthly mini’s and receive a new album monthly and found it was a great way to share pictures with our grandparents (M’s great grands). For example, my nana doesn’t have an email address so she doesn’t have access to tiny beans, but she is able to get this album each month in the mail! It’s also nice sometimes to get the mail and it not be all bills (haha). The app is super user friendly and you do everything right from your phone (you actually can’t create a mini album from a desktop computer). You can set it up as a subscription or pay monthly. And since we send three total, you can create three separate ones or send three of the same album! I highly recommend checking out Chatbooks if you’re interested in creating some happy mail for yourself or loved ones each month!

Skylight Digital Frame

We got our parent’s these digital frames before M arrived because we knew it would be a great way to share pictures quickly with each other! My parents have one and my in-laws have one. We are able to send photos from our phones through the Skylight app and they appear instantly on our parent’s digital frames! This is a very easy way to share memories with loved ones who you aren’t able to see regularly. The pictures act like a slideshow and our parents are able to “heart” the photos and then we get an email so we know they’ve seen them. When we send new photos to their frames, there’s a message that pops up alerting them to new photos at the bottom of the frame. This has been so useful during the pandemic and makes a great gift!

Share with me below the ways you’ve been able to stay in touch with family and friends during the pandemic!