How to Prepare for an In-Home Newborn Photo Session
Let’s stop time
As a new mama, or a mama of a new baby, those first few days & weeks at home can be a total blur. Your main job is to keep your new baby healthy & happy - which mostly means keeping them fed & changed & snuggled. Everything else is a bonus. And because those first few days can feel like such a blur as you’re surviving on a mere few hours of sleep, newborn sessions are the perfect way to freeze time. To bottle up those precious moments so that you can cherish them forever.
If you’re making the investment into booking a newborn session, good for you, mama! You will be so glad you did. Especially, weeks and months and years later when you get to look back on your sweet little one when they were oh so tiny.
So, you’ve booked the photographer, now let’s chat about a few things you can do to prepare for an amazing newborn session. Here are a few tips to help you relax & enjoy the process.
Don’t stress over what baby will wear
I know that one of the most exciting things about having a new baby is getting to dress them in the most adorable little outfits. I get it! But, when it comes to your newborn photo session at home, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to not stress about what they will wear!
Why? When they are this tiny, the biggest thing I am focusing on as your photographer is just that. Their tiny nose, little hands, & sweet baby feet. Sometimes, the very best outfit they can wear is a simple onesie that accentuates their tiny little shape, a swaddle that keeps them snuggled up in a little cocoon while I focus on their face, or just their birthday suit!
When newborn outfits get too busy, it can distract from the main point of these photos - your baby! And your growing family. Keep it simple & I promise you will be so happy with how your photos turn out and it will remove one potentially stressful item from your plate.
Focus mostly on your own outfit
I say this a lot, but when choosing outfits for your family, START WITH YOU. Because if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, right? Check out my What to Wear Guide for more tips to approach your outfit.
And on a more serious note - your body has been through A LOT. I remember after having my first daughter Wylden, I felt so awkward in my own body. Whose boobs are these? Why doesn’t anything fit the same as before I was pregnant? Why do I still kinda feel like I look pregnant? All this and more is SO normal, so take some time before your photos to focus on you.
What little details would make you feel most beautiful for these photos? Painting your nails? Going to get your nails done? Having someone else hold the baby while you curl your hair? Getting your hair blown out? Choose at least one small way to treat yourself and take the time to make yourself feel extra pretty - because you ARE.
Wear something flowy. If you’re still feeling like, wait, whose body is this anyway? I think a flowy maxi dress is a perfffect look for family photos at home with your newborn. They look effortlessly beautiful & elegant, but also allow you to curl up cozily on the couch or bed with your baby and still flow naturally with the scene of your home.
Talk with your photographer about which rooms of your house are best to shoot in
You do not need to worry about cleaning your entire home for session, mama! Unless of course, there is someone else who can do it for you! Instead, chat with your photographer about what rooms in your house would have the best potential to shoot in for your session and focus on having those rooms clean and free of clutter.
I love shooting with the natural light that is available in each home, so I often pick the rooms with the most natural light. I like to chat with my clients about which rooms in their home have the biggest windows or face the direction with the most available outside light and focus on those areas for the session. Again, you, your baby, and your growing family are the focus more than anything else, so all we need is a little natural light to make magic happen.
Relax & enjoy
More than anything else, remember to enjoy yourself. Let yourself relax & just love on your new baby & the beautiful photos will follow. That’s something that can’t be fabricated. Take deep breaths, smell the new baby smells, snuggle in close, sing your baby a song - let yourself get lost in the moment and the photographer will capture the magic that ensues. I promise.
I hope these tips will help remove some stress & lighten the load a little bit as you prepare for having this sweet season of life captured with your newest addition to the family. Enjoy the treat of having photos taken & just soak up all the sweetness!
If you want to learn how to take better photos of your everyday life at home with your little one, I think you might enjoy my online course, Digital Photography 101! It’s the perfect, self-paced course for learning how to use your digital camera so that you can take beautiful photos you’re excited to hang on your walls & share with friends & family. It can’t remove the value of YOU being in the photos taken by a professional photographer, but it will help you capture the everyday magic in between. You deserve to feel confident in front of the camera AND behind it!
I hope you enjoyed these sweet & snuggly newborn photos with this precious little (less than a day old) newborn baby & his big siblings! Baby Grady & the Conner family absolutely melted my heart!
PS:
Are you looking for a tool to edit the photos you take day in & day out of your family at home (on your phone or DSLR camera)? My Lightroom Presets will do just the trick! 6 presets for you to play with as you make your photos POP.
XO,
Suzy