As soon as your baby was born, you instantly fell in love. Those chubby cheeks, hands that are all wrinkly, and tiny appendages are more than enough to make your heart melt. When you’re a new parent, you often don’t have time to commit all these small details about your baby to memory because being a new parent is stressful! That’s exactly why new parents hire a specialty photographer, called a newborn photographer, to take pictures of their baby during the first 14 days of life.

A newborn photographer has the skill and experience necessary to capture those fleeting newborn moments, like their soft, tiny head fitting perfectly on your shoulder as you rock them back and forth to sleep. If you’re a new parent, you’ll want to cherish moments like this before your baby becomes a boisterous toddler.

However, preparing for a newborn photo shoot can be stressful. After all, your baby is very small and delicate. Safety is such an important factor. You’ll also want to choose a photographer who has the training and experience working with newborn babies. This is not a task to entrust to a photographer you know that’s only looking for some extra cash on the side.

To help you prepare, we’ve done some research and come up with several tips to help you prepare for your newborn photography session. Before we present those tips, we found this website, www.newbornphotographyniagara.com, to be very helpful while conducting our research. Be sure to check them out!

Tip #1 – Feed your baby 30 minutes before the photo shoot

Newborns are very hungry! The last thing you want is for your photo shoot to be disrupted by frantic crying for milk. If you feed and burp your newborn about 30 minutes before the session, they’ll likely become very sleepy and easy to pose! However, you should try and avoid giving them a full meal in the hours leading up to the session. Get them hungry, and then feed them 30 minutes before the session. That strategy has been proven to generate good results!

Tip #2 – Book your session well in advance

The key to capturing those perfect newborn moments is getting your photoshoot done before your baby is 14 days old. That’s a very small window of time to be working with, so scheduling well in advance is key to making it happen. Plus, any good photographer will be booked a few weeks in advance, so chances are you can’t just call when the baby is born and get a session within 14 days. The ideal time to make your appointment is weeks 14 through 27 of pregnancy.

Tip #3 – Don’t let your newborn nap before the session

Newborns sleep a lot, but don’t let them pass out after your feeding 30 minutes before the shoot. Play with them, entertain them, do whatever is necessary to keep them awake. That way, they’ll be tired when it’s time to do the photo shoot. You 100% want a tired baby for the photography session, because that’s exactly how you’ll get those incredibly adorable, sleepy poses you’ll cherish for the rest of your life.

We hope these tips help you prep for your photo shoot, and we especially hope this article inspires you to do your own research on newborn photography. If you’re not a parent yourself, a newborn photoshoot also makes a sweet, unique gift for a friend or family member!