Sinterklaas with a little one: the memories you'll want to look back on

For a small child, Sinterklaas (the Dutch December tradition that ends with presents on the evening of 5 December) is one of the most intense weeks of the year. The excitement of putting their shoe out, the first time they dare to sing a song for the Sint, their face as they open the first present: those are the pictures you'll want to come back to later. Usually they disappear into the family group chat, somewhere between the Christmas shopping and the holiday plans.

It's a very Dutch problem. The well-known baby apps from abroad have no Sinterklaas category, no option for a letter to the Sint, and no idea that 5 December is different from 24 December. Yet these are exactly the weeks full of moments you don't realise are so short-lived.

What usually goes wrong after Sinterklaas

The photos end up scattered. A few in the family group, a few in the chat with Grandma, the video of present night only on your partner's phone. If you want to look at them again in January, you're searching four conversations at once.

The date is no longer right. Someone forwards the photos a week later in a message. Now the photo carries the upload date of 12 December instead of the day it actually happened. Five years from now you search for December and can't find it on the 5th.

Videos never get watched again. That three-minute video of your little one singing "Sinterklaas Kapoentje" for the first time sits somewhere in a chat, compressed, and nobody ever goes looking for it. A shame, because voices and singing change fastest of all.

The little things between the celebrations go missing. Everyone photographs present night. Hardly anyone captures the shoe that turns out to be empty in the morning, the colouring picture for the Sint, or the little treat your child leaves out for Piet, Sinterklaas's helper. Those are exactly the images that move you most later on.

How to get the Sinterklaas season into one timeline

The idea is simple: everything that happens in those six weeks (photo, video, voice note, a memorable little sentence) goes in one place per child, on the right date, with a short note. On the day itself, so there's nothing left to put together at the end.

In Ouderliefde it works like this: you link a WhatsApp number to your child, and you send a photo the way you'd send it to Grandma. It lands in the timeline with today's date, and the message you typed with it becomes the caption. A video of present night takes the same route. So does a voice note, for example your child at the table listing everything they're going to ask Sinterklaas for.

So you don't need to set aside a special moment to save "the Sinterklaas memories". If you're sending something to family anyway, it's in the album. And because every child has their own timeline, in five years your eldest's six Decembers sit side by side: from the anxious two-year-old who wouldn't sit on the Sint's lap to the five-year-old leading the songs.

The run-up too: shoes, letters, wish lists

Present night is one evening. The weeks before are at least as interesting. A few things that are worth capturing:

• The shoe on the first evening. What's in it, what your child put in it (a carrot, a drawing for Piet), and their reaction in the morning. A short video works better than a photo: the face says more than the contents.
• The wish list. If your child can already draw or say something, this is priceless. A photo of the list, or a voice note of them reeling it off. In five years you'll want to hear what was at the top that year.
• The letter to the Sint. Even a scribble will be dearer later than the present it led to. Photograph it before it disappears into the shoe.
• Sinterklaas arriving on TV. Your child's reaction to the first images of the arrival (the intocht). It's rarely quite what you expect.
• Present night itself. One uninterrupted video of the first few minutes is usually enough. Not every present separately; just that first reaction.

Do this for a few years and you end up with a memory archive that holds the milestones as well as what Sinterklaas felt like when your child was three, four, five, six. An ordinary photo library gives you a dump by date, with no story.

Keep videos and voice notes safe as well

A common mistake: leaving the videos on your phone and sending the photos to Grandma. The photos survive, because they're in plenty of chats, while the video rarely makes the move to a new phone. And videos of small children are the hardest to get back: their voice and the way they move change every few months.

A simple rule: if something exists in only one place, and that place is your phone, it hasn't been saved. Put the present night video in the timeline that same evening. Then it's on the right date, stored safely, and you'll still have it fifteen years from now.

What it gives you fifteen years from now

Ouderliefde is built around the idea that you only realise much later which moments mattered. That's why, in the settings, you can add a time capsule letter that your child receives at eighteen, together with the matching pictures from their childhood. The Sinterklaas evenings belong in there; together they may well be the most recognisable piece of childhood memory for a Dutch child.

The effort this year is one evening of putting some photos and a video in the timeline. What you get back is a run of Sinterklaas Decembers side by side, right up until your child leaves home.