Harford County Newborn Photographer - Baby Skylar Paige

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Okay, I’m going to be very honest in this post. And it might be long, sorry about that! But these newborn sessions are not always cupcakes and rainbows, even though they may seem that way. (Yes, I think that’s a Trolls quote, haha!) So Mom and I thought we’d shed some light on newborn sessions, for those of you who are unfamiliar with them.

Skylar was just about two weeks old for our session, so right at the end of our newborn posing window. Babies older than two weeks usually are more alert and no longer like to be posed and curled up like inside the womb. This is why it’s best to schedule these posed sessions two to three months before your due date. Mom also gave me a heads up about Skylar being a VERY alert baby since she was born. She told me that Skylar is just always wide-eyed and looking around.

Because of that, we were prepared to not get any sleepy shots, but we wanted to try. The baby is always the boss during these sessions, and I explain that to all of my clients beforehand. We can’t force the baby to do anything he or she doesn’t want to do. It’s always important to understand that the photos we want to get, are never guaranteed, even if we prepare everything perfectly. Every baby is different. It may take 20 minutes to get one baby into a sleepy pose, while another baby may take an hour. That’s why these sessions are usually between two and four hours long.

It took two hours to finally get Little Skylar comfortable and asleep, and it only lasted about five minutes. We think poor Skylar was having a bad day of tummy pains because she had lots of gas, and needed quite a few diaper changes. And after each diaper change, she wanted to eat to fill her belly up again.

But with lots of patience and determination, Skylar finally got pretty drowsy. I managed to capture all of her tiny details as she settled into sleep, then I positioned her the easiest way I could without disturbing her. She never fell into a deep sleep, but her eyes fluttered shut a few times for photos. And that was it. I had two other setups ready to go, but she woke right up and wanted nothing more to do with photos.

We moved on to the lifestyle photos with Mom, Dad, and Skylar, with her big blue eyes, wearing Mom's going home dress from when she was born. You see photos of a hungry baby being fed by her beautiful mother, a father soothing his baby girl, and two new parents, adjusting to their roles as parents, soaking up every minute. Because you may already love your baby before he or she is born, but actually feeling the overwhelming love and emotion that pours out at the sight of your new child, that cannot be anticipated. And that is why the lifestyle photos are my favorite part of my newborn sessions.

You also see Zola in these photos, Skylar’s four-legged big sister. Zola is such a sweet dog, and she already loves Skylar very much. As soon as we let Zola upstairs for these photos, she ran right into the nursery, and started giving Skylar sweet doggy kisses.

So we started this session not knowing what photos we would get out of it, and I think the ones we got turned out beautifully. Mom loves the photos, and we had a laugh about the first one. Because little Miss Skylar Paige looks like she is up to no good! Just look at that facial expression!

Miss Skylar was such a little stinker, but she is absolutely precious. And I enjoyed every minute I spent rocking her. Sometimes the unexpected photos turn out to be the most cherished, because they create more of a true representation and memory for us to look back on. ♥