My daughter was nearly two when my mother-in-law asked: "Show us that video of her first steps." A simple request. Twenty minutes later I still hadn't found it.
I had looked in my camera app, in iCloud, in Google Photos and in three WhatsApp groups. The video existed, because I had filmed it myself, on a Tuesday in December, in our living room. In the end it turned up in a WhatsApp message to my mum, buried among dozens of other messages.
My in-laws watched the video. Everyone laughed. But something stuck with me.
My daughter's memories were everywhere and nowhere
Her first smile, her first word, the day she proudly pulled off her own shoe: spread across at least six places. WhatsApp groups, my camera roll, iCloud, Google Photos, video files on my laptop, and somewhere a little notebook from the hospital.
None of those places was a memory. They were storage. Chaos with good intentions.
If my phone broke, or if in ten years I wanted to show my daughter what she was like as a toddler, I would be in real trouble.
The existing apps didn't fit
Surely something had been made for exactly this. An app for your child's memories, private, well organised, suited to Dutch families.
I found Tinybeans. An American app, used by millions of parents. The language was English, the interface felt designed around an American idea of family life, grandparents had to create an account to see photos, and the data sat on American servers.
After that I tried Baby Diaries and Lifecake. Baby Diaries is mostly about a printed book at the end; Lifecake was British and has since shut down. Both were built for something other than what I was looking for. Nothing that felt like ours.
So I started building it myself
I'm a developer by trade. That makes "I'll just do it myself" easier to say than it is for most people, although it doesn't make the job one bit smaller. I started with one question: what does the app need to do?
- A timeline of photos and videos, per child, in date order
- Milestones: first step, first word, first day at school
- Grandparents follow along through their own secure link, which you can revoke at any time
- Co-parents can both contribute, even when they are no longer together
- A time capsule: a letter my daughter can read years from now
- Everything on European servers, no data collection for advertising
That list is exactly what Ouderliefde became.
Every feature has a reason
The photo timeline was the starting point. All memories in one place, in date order, with the context alongside, so you can find them the moment someone asks.
The milestones came next. They are meant as memories, not as a list of achievements. In ten years I want to be able to read back when she first said "Daddy".
A secure link for grandparents was a deliberate choice. My parents aren't very technical and already found WhatsApp a struggle. In Ouderliefde you create a share link with a long random code that can't be guessed and isn't found by Google. They tap it and see the timeline straight away, and you can revoke it at any time.
Co-parent support is there because lots of families don't fit the standard picture. Separated parents, newly blended families: a child's memories belong to both parents. Both can add photos, and everything sits together on one timeline.
The time capsule letter is the most personal part. You write a letter to your child that only becomes visible on a date you choose. Their 18th birthday, their first day at school, whenever you like. I wrote my first time capsule letter the night I finished the feature.
Where Ouderliefde is now
The app is live at ouderliefde.app and you can use it today.
I'd love to hear from parents who use it. What works well? What's missing? What isn't clear straight away? I use that feedback to make the app better for every parent who comes after.
To make it easy, every new account starts with 7 days of free Premium, normally €5.49 a month. No payment details, and the trial simply ends by itself.
If you've also spent twenty minutes searching for a video of your child, I built this for you.