I love the look of "lifestyle" newborn shoots...
...but when I had my second baby, I had a hard time believing anyone was going to make my current living situation look as serene and beautiful as the homes I saw on photographers' portfolios. We were all exhausted, there were toys everywhere, my parents were staying with us to help out, and at just a few weeks post-partum, I fit into exactly none of my non-maternity clothes. If you're anything like me, you tend to *overthink* these things, so here are some simple tips for getting the most out of your session based on all of our biggest photo-shoot-related anxieties.
1. No, you don't need to clean your whole house!
How are you even supposed to begin making your entire house photo-ready with a NEWBORN?! Not to mention, you're probably sore, you have spit-up in your hair, and you're basically wearing a diaper of your own. First of all, rest assured I will help you clear away the clutter from whichever area I choose to shoot in. But if you want to get a head start so that I spend more time snapping and less time tidying, focus on areas with the most natural light, which usually means near your biggest windows and sliding glass doors. The nursery and anywhere with a big bed or couch that the whole fam can gather are also likely spots to end up in photos. Leave your bathroom alone for now.
2. A Miracle Fix for Baby Acne
Baby acne is really common and usually nothing to worry about! But you might not want it to be the focal point of your baby's first photos. No, you should definitely not use any acne medication's on your little one's brand new skin! Here's a better trick: if you'd like to minimize it for the big day, and you have a few extra drops of breast milk to spare, put some on a soft cloth or piece of gauze and wipe baby's face. I have no idea how this works but I've seen it do absolute magic in just a matter of hours.
3. Check Yourself (and Family) for Distracting Details
No one else will probably care or notice if your husband has a giant hole in his sock in Every. Single. Picture (*speaking from experience*)...but things like that might seriously distract you from the beautiful images, especially when you add sleep deprivation, high expectations, and hormones. Other common offenders are scrunchies wrapped around your wrist (or red marks from hair ties that used to be there...), cell phone bulges in Dad's pocket, food scraps or boogers on older siblings' faces, writing on anyone's hands, and Apple Watches that light up with distracting images in each picture. Yes, many of these minor flaws can be edited out, but Photoshop isn't perfect and it's always better to get it right in-camera.
4. Crank the Heat
Newborns, as a group, tend to hate being cold. This goes for diaper changes and outfit changes. So if you're dreaming of peaceful, sleepy pictures of your nugget that showcase some skin rolls or involve multiple variations of swaddles and wraps, you're going to want to keep things extra toasty. When our first son had his newborn pictures, the photographer had a straight up giant space heater in her studio and kept him asleep through the whole ordeal like it was nothing. I went out and bought my own space heater for diaper changes literally that day.
5. Time it Right
Pauses for soothing and feeding are an expected part of the newborn photoshoot process (you might even get great pics of snack time out of it!), it's always nice to get a good stretch of happy baby during a shoot! If you've noticed a trend in Baby's behavior, try to book a time of day that you're baby seems to be calmest (that tends to be earlier in the morning for most babies), and make sure your baby and any young siblings that are involved are fed and changed when it's go-time. Please don't wake your baby up or try to keep them up at night just to be "ready" for pictures. Or really for any reason, ever.
