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At Jennifer McNeil Photography, I believe the best time to photograph a newborn is when you are ready. I promise I will give more concrete answers below, but ultimately it’s important to remember that you and your baby are both recovering from birth. Rushing into a session to achieve some mythical perfect time for newborn photos, may have less than optimal results.
For my studio, most newborns are photographed between 1 and 3 weeks old. This is because I have found that after photographing thousands of them, most babies and parents are happy to be photographed during this time!
My first 6 years as a newborn photographer was spent in a hospital photographing babies at 1-2 days old. Those babies were a dream! Super sleepy, relaxed, wanting to be curled up like they were back in the womb. But you know who wasn’t happy? The mamas! Parents are super sleep deprived after giving birth, so while I LOVE Fresh 48 sessions, and the photos are super special, I prefer to make sure parents know it is ok to take some time to bond, and recover before coming into the studio.
When babies come in at about 2 weeks old for a newborn session they are often very well adjusted to life outside the womb. A feeding routine has also been established. This means we can photograph more easily between feedings, avoiding times of cluster feeding that usually happen sooner in their life.
Never! Come on, babies are cute no matter how old they are. That said, they aren’t newborns forever, so sooner is always going to be better than later. I do also photograph older babies as newborns, and you can read all about that experience here. A baby over 3 weeks old is still a newborn, and because of my swaddling techniques, those babies are still happy and sleepy for a majority of the session.
It’s all about meeting babies where they’re at. If you can come in sooner, around 1-3 weeks old, do that. If you need more time, just know that I will still be able to create beautiful photos of your baby, in newborn style images, up to 3 months of age. Take these 3-month olds for example:
Contact me today to tell me about your baby, and learn more about the whole experience!
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2 Responses
These are beautiful! And incredibly helpful information, especially knowing that even if baby is here, there’s still time to get in for a newborn session! I think too many parents assume it’s too late once the baby has arrived.
Yes! They do because it’s been another source of mom guilt for years, from photographers no more! I’m all about capturing the adorableness of babies at any age